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Curing and Resweatlng for Quality and 
Dark Colors. 

A PRACTICAL HAND-BOOK 

CIGAR MANUFACTURERS AND LEAF DEALERS 

Who are Licensed to use the Patents of 
Inventor, Author and Publisher, 

188 Pearl Street, Jfew York. 



REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION. 



COPYRIGHTED 







0lI^ 




m 








Curing: jiiid ReswcatiiiJ»- for Quality and 
Dark Colors. 

A PRACTICAL HAND-BOOK 

FOR 

CIGAR MANUFACTURERS AND LEAF DEALERS 

Who are Licensed to use the Patents of 



>, li I' ,' Inventor, Author and Publisher, 

188 Pearl Street, New York. 



COPYRIGHTED ^^^S^s- 



^ - ^'-i 



Estered according to Act of Congress in the year 1882 by 

CHARLES S. PHILIPS, 

in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. 



OOI^TENTS 



Read this book carefully, and you eaiinot fail ou any kind of leaf 11 

This work not for the public 5 

Obstacles to success 6 

Sweating small quantities 6 

Why the old steaming process was worthless 6, 11, 18, 19. 26 

Result of work done by small steam apparatuses 6 

Why steamed tobacco stinks G, 7, 8, 16, 18, 19, 26 

Objections to the use of dye stuffs on tobacco 7 

Objections to dyed or painted cigars T 

First experiments to correct bad smelling tobacco 7 

First patent to correct bad smelling tobacco 7 

Ammonia gas removes the steam smell from tobacco 7 

When and why highly heated tobacco will not stink 8 

Proper degrees of heat for natural sweating or fermenting 8, 10, 13, 24 

Why and how ammonia is used 8, 16 

Length of time to establish ammoniacal fermentation 8, 10, 15 

Ammoniacal fermentation without using ammonia 8, 14, 18, 19 

Q 1 O 

How to get dark colors '^' ^~' 

Why use a moist heat for getting dark colors 8 

New moisture not necessary 

Tobacco takes up no new moisture while packed in wooden vessels 8 

Successful work with metal vessels ^ 

The benefit of wood vessels over metal ^ 



a CONTENTS. 

Why a manufacturer ruay use a metal vessel 

Why a leaf dealer or jobber should not 9 

No apparatus by itself a succcess 9 

High heats not so injurious to old tobacco 9 

No such thing as fail with my process 9 

An inventor should be able to successfully operate his invention 9, 10 

Length of time for tobacco to warm up after casing 10, 34 

A warm room necessary besides the apparatus 10, 13 

Why fermentation should not be forced 10 

V Why cold tobacco does not improve in quality 10 

Length of time to continue fermentation or natural sweating after you have 

cased your tobacco and find it warm 10, 14, 15, 18, 36, 38 

Fermenting fine thin leaf. 10, 18 

Fermenting medium quality leaf 11, 15, 18 

Fermenting wild, raw fleshy tobacco. ... 11, 15, 18, 35 

Fermenting 3, 4, 5 or 6 A Pa 11, 35 

Fermenting State Seed o; Jersey Shore 11 

Length of time and degrees of heat for the cases of tobacco to remain in the 

sweati ig apparatus 11, 13, 38, ?0 

Fermentation, its importance and benefits 11, 13, 13, 14, 39 

Heats of the old cooking processes 11 

Low heats develop coloring matter 11, 13 

4 High heats kill the gloss ... .0, 11 

Caution as to using my patents or the contents of this book II 

Fermenting room necessary 10, 13, 34 

Fermentation, how established and conducted 8, 10, 13 

Stove for fermenting room, or a coil of stea'u pipe 13 

Secret of rich, glossy dark colors 13 

Fermentation, how to tell when it is killed 13 

Do not expect the apparatus to do what you neglected to do by fermentation. .13 

High heats, when not objectionable 13 

Cold tobacco must not be put into the apparatus 13 



CONTENTS. 6 

Heats which expel ammonia rapidly from the leaf 15, 18, 19 

Solution for casing or wetting tobacco 15 

Box for hanging fine tobacco after sweating 16, 17 

Benefit of hanging fine tobacco a few hours. 17 

Ammonia leaves no deposit on the leaf 18 

Chemicals not necessary for colors 19 

Why tight cases or boxes should be used in the apparatus 19, 2 

Instead of using stronger solutions of ammonia on very rank goods, allow 

more time for fermentcxtion 19 

Casing tubs and boards 19, 20 

Casing or wetting tobacco 20, 21, 23, 23 

Casing tender, new, old, soggy or sticky tobacco 21 

Boxing or bulking for the fermenting room 23 to 28 

Blankets should not be used 24 

Tobacco should not be handled when cold 24 

Boxing better than bulking 23, 24 

Moistened air not necessary for fermentation ., 24, 25 

Sweating for factory use 25 

Objections to metal vessels 25, 26 

When tobacco is ready for the apparatus 26 

Heats that do not take out gum 26, 27 

How to cure a swelling leaf 26 

Keep some cases cased ahead of your demands 27 

Havana seed 28 

How to tell if you wet tobacco enough 28, 29 

How to proceed if you accidentally bring from the process tobacco that 

does not smell good 29 

Using ammonia in the apparatus instead of on the tobacco 29 

Mouldy tobacco, preventing and renovating 29 

Why too hot tobacco should not be exposed to cold air 30 

How to tell if you made a mistake in conducting the process 30 

The cause of dead, red, or gray colors 30 



4 CONTEM'S. 

Sweating short leaf wrappers 31 

Sweating fillers and binders 31, 32 

Sweating Havana tobacco 32, 33, 34 

Sweating new tobacco 34, 35, 36, 37, 38 

Sweating Sumatra, Java, etc 38 

Sweating Kentucky 38, 39 

Sweating Wisconsin ... .21, 38 

How to stop a case of tobacco sweating 39 

Not necessary to keep up a high heat night and day 38 

C. S. Philips' Patent Portable Sweating Apparatuses, heat by gas, how to 

set up and operate 40 to 45 

Sweating Books or Pads 44 

C. S. Philips' patent apparatuses for more than one case, heat by steam or 

hot water apparatuses, how to set up and operate 46 

How to proceed when you are in doubt as to how you should handle any par- 
ticular case or cases of tobacco 39 



PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. 



This work is not for the public, but solely for my patrons' use, who have 
contracted with and who have been Licensed by me to use my Patented Appar- 
atuses and p recesses, and who are entitled thereby to have the benefit of my 
long experience in the art of Curing, Sweating and Coloring Leaf Tobacco, and 
all the aid and assistance I can render them that they may easily and positively 
reach satisfactory results. As you pay for the knowledge which this book con- 
tains, it is to your interest that you do not give it away, but let each person pay 
for their own schooHng. Therefore you will please allow m one not connected 
with your business to have access to it or knowledge of its contents. It is for 
your private use only during the time you hold a license from me. To inquiring 
parties who may be interested in the matter, I would be pleased to have you 
speak of my work in such a kindly manner without going into details as to the 
process, that you may be the means of my rendering the same beneficial ser- 
vice to others that I have to you. If you should ever do me the favor of show- 
ing the apparatus to any inquiring one, please do not inform them as to the de- 
gree of heat used on the tobacco either lefore or while it is in the apparatus. 
Please refer them to me for any information they may wish. 

The first edition of this book was too short, not plain enough for some few 
minds among those whom I licensed. Occasionally considerable correspondence 
was necessary in order to get them on the right track. As a rule, the people 
with whom I had difiiculty to get them to do nice work, were those who would 
not read the book, but would write for all sorts of information already laid down 
in my book, which was in their possession. They simply preferred to read my 
letters to my book. I have also made new discoveries as to the use of heat on 
the tobacco while it is being steamed or in the sweating chamber. The tobacco 
trade is also curing and using newer or younger tobacco earher each year, as my 
processes are getting to be better understood. 1 therefore concluded to re- 
write and revise the work, and thus kill several birds with one stone. 

I have made tobacco my constant study for many years, with a view to im- 
proving its quality and sweating it to dark colors; also to perfect processes that 



6 TOBACCO CURINC4 AND RESWEATING. 

would be simple and positive, and not require extraordinary skill to successfully 
use them. During these years that I have made the resweating of tobacco to 
produce Dark Colors a special business, I liave been largely patronized by the 
leaf and cigar trade In all parts of the land. Many thousands of cases, and 
large quantities of every kind of seed leaf grown, have passed, and are daily 
passing through my establishments. I have watched and noted carefully the 
result of every case. Many costly experiments have been abandoned; preju- 
dices have been slowly overcome. It has been hard, up-hill work, but perse- 
verance will accomplish whatever you undertake; and to-day I have the satis- 
faction of knowing that I have brought it to such a state ©f perfection that it is 
the only successful process in existence, and is in general use from one end of 
the country to the other, by all classes of tobacco and cigar merchants, from the 
very largest to the smallest, and is the only 'process that will cure and sweat to- 
hacco to dark colors without stinMng the tobacco, and thus making it to a certain 
extent unmerchantable. 

Two great obstacles stood in the way of perfect success. Dead black colors 
and a stinking tobacco. The tobacco was easily made dark by simply heating 
the moist tobacco for a few hours or days at a temperature ranging from 175 to 
200 or 212 degrees. If the mass to be colored was small, a few minutes or hours 
was sufficient. If tlie mass luider treatment was one or more eases, the treat- 
ment required several days, but the result was exactly the same, so far as color 
and bad smell was concerned; but the smaller the mass thus treated the better 
was the general result, for the reason that in masses of 400 pounds or more the 
outsides of the mass received this high heat from 24 to 48 hours longer than 
and before the inside of the mass became heated. Consequently, much of the 
outer portions of all tobacco so treated, became worthless by being burned up as 
it were by the long application of this high heat, or else the centre of the mass 
got no treatment at all, which amounted to about the same thing — unmer- 
chantable tobacco, or at best a tobacco of much less value than by the pro- 
cess I now use. 

The small steaming apparatuses, used by the small manufacturers, turned out 
tobacco dark and stinking, but yet without necessarily burning it so as to spoil 
it for wrappers. The colors were a dead black, void of lustre and the bad odor, 
empyreumatic or tarry odor, left the cigars to a great extent, after several weeks 
exposure to air in the boxes. The larger manufacturers who attempted steam 
sweating or high heat sweating in quantities of one or moi'e cases at a time, 
ruined large quantities of tobacco. The tobacco stank so thereby that the cigar-mak- 
ers refused to work it, and cigars made from such stock were difficult to sell, 
and the cigars were often returned after a sale was made. The demand was 



TOBACCO CURING AND RESWEATING. 7 

for dark colored wrappers on cigars, yet the trade could not put up with the 
stink and the dead color. With such a state of affairs then in actual existence, 
the resweating of tobacco to dark colors had to be abandoned, or a proces.s 
worked out whereby it could be done with greater satisfaction. The objections 
nnust be overcome, but how, that was the all important question to nie. I found 
myself with ten thousand dollars worth of sweating apparatuses and macninery 
for carrying on the business on my hands, that was perfectly worthless if I did 
not or could not succeed in pleasing my customers in the near future. 

I had staked my all, and ruin stared me in the face, but I did not give up. 
I kept on experimenting, and in three years I spent upwards of twenty thousand 
dollars in experimenting, making about thirty thousand dollars I had now lost 
in atempting to so perfect the process that it would be worth a patent. Some 
said the bad odor came from the metal vessels which they used in which to pack 
the tobacco for treatment. Some said it came from the wood vessels used. 
Some steamed the tobacco without having it packed into any vessel at all. 
Everybody who was interested in the subject tried his or their way to avoid the 
stink. Some even tried the flavoring or perfuming of the tobacco, but without 
a single exception they all failed to remedy the evil. Whoever made dark col- 
ored tobacco by heat and moisture made it stink. Some tried processes of dye- 
ing the leaf tobacijo; others painted their cigars a dark color; yet nothing was 
satisfactory. The use of dye-stuffs on the tobacco necessitated the large use of 
foreign matter on the leaf, and the colors were imnatural. If the cigars were 
painted or eoloi-ed after they were made, the color was also more or less unnat- 
ural, and then if the wrapper became unrolled in the least from the cigar, as it 
always does when it has been smoked a few minutes, especially the part near 
the mouth of the smoker, it would at once be seen by the two colors that the 
cigar had been painted, for that part of tlie wrapper which was covered up by 
the lapping over of the outer part of the wrapper would not get any color. 
Consequently something had to be done in order to change this state of affairs. 

I had noticed in my early experiments that the less heat I used on the to- 
bacco the less bad odor the tobacco had, but when I used a heat low enough to 
avoid the bad smell I did not get the dark color desired. I experimented con- 
stantly with every harmless chemical the books made mention of, but still made 
little or no progress, until at last I found that ammonia gas would remove the 
stink from the tobacco, and took out my first process patent, making my appli- 
cation February, 1879. I used this process on thousands of cases, but I was 
constantly experimenting how to avoid the stink during the sweating of the 
tobacco, as this ammonia gas process necessitated the labor of hanging every 
case of tobacco in a tight room or box, and the generating of and feed- 



S TOBACCO CURING AND RE8WEATIN6. 

ing to the hanging tobacco sufficient ammonia gas to do the 
work required. This was very expensive, costing me nearly two dollars 
for every case treated over and above the cost of handling it to get the colors. 
At length I discovered that the stink was caused solely by the decomposition of 
certain elements of the leaf while it was under or subjected to a high heat for 
coloring, also that if those elements could be removed, neutralized or eliminated 
before subjecting the tobacco to a high heat for coloring that the tobacco could 
then be heated and colored, and it would not stink. 

After many experiments I found that fermentation, or first sweating the to- 
bacco under very low degrees of heat, 60 to 90 degrees, or such a heat as will facili- 
tate and not kill fermentation, and continuing the sweating under the low de- 
gree of heat for ii length of time in proportion to the rank or raw character of 
the tobacco, that in a comparatively short time the tobacco so treated had lost 
the bad odor- producing products to such an extent that the tobacco could then be 
heated and colored and it would not stink. I also discovered about the same 
time that if the tobacco to be sweated or colored be first wet with a solution of 
ammonia (preferably carbonate of ammonia), and then sweated under the low 
heat, that ammoniacal fermentation is set up in a few days, 3 to 6, instead of a 
few weeks, and not at the expense of the leaf, as is the case in fermenting the 
leaf by first wetting the leaf with clean water only and depending upon the for- 
mation of ammonia enough to carry out the process by its formation from the 
elements of the tobacco itself. Tobacco thus treated has more strength of leaf 
than the simply fermented tobacco, and a few days' low sweating under the low 
heats mentioned, so thoroughly rids the tobacco of its bad odor-producing ele- 
ments that it may be heated and colored as dark as you wish and yet retain a 
pleasant and natural odor. 

All that is necessary to carry out the process is that you give your tobacco 
an ammoniacal fermentation for a few days, in any kind of a room that you can 
warm up to 65 or 75 degrees of heat, and then subject the tobacco-holding 
vessel to a moist heat of 110 to 120 degrees until the colors suit you, as you 
will be more fully instructed further along in the book. The reason I then want 
a moist heat is simply to prevent the tobacco from drying out too fast, to keep up a 
kind of equilibrium. The tobacco being first made wet and packed into wooden 
boxes, which are ordinarily tight, will not by the low fermentation lose an exces- 
sive amount of moisture, and no new moisture is necessary to the result, and by no 
wood apparatus or process does the tobacco get new moisture while it is in the 
sweating chamber. If the tobacco be packed into a tight metal vessel, and 
then subjected to a moist or steam heat, the tobacco will come from the process^ 
just as dark, just as sweet, just as nice every way, only the butts of the tobacco 



TOBACCO CURING AND RESWEATING. 9 

will be too moist, as they could not dry out at all, as all moisture which the heat 
caused to come from the leaf must naturally follow the course or length of the 
leaf, and thus condense on or around the butts or ties, thus over wetting them, 
'while in a wooden vessel, under the same conditions as to heat and moisture, the 
butts would come from the process in a much drier and more desirable condition,, 
as the wood of the tobacco-holding vessel would act as an absorbent, and thus 
take into itself any excess of moisture caused by condensation of vapor inside 
or outside of the tobacco holder, and very many days would be necessary to 
saturate the wood box to such an extent that it could not take up any more 
moisture, at least many more days than is necessary to conduct the moist part of 
the process. Tobacco sweated in a factory for immediate use may be sweated 
as well in an iron or metal vessel, providing the process of fermentation is first 
properly carried out; but for a jobbing merchant, who may have to keep his 
tobacco months before seUing it, the butts should come from the process not too 
wet, as they would then mold, unless they were to be sufficiently dried out at 
once. 

No apparatus by itself will do successful work on any seed leaf tobacco now 
in the marJcet. The reason I say that is this : about all of the tobacco now on 
the market is only about one year old; consequently these tobaccos must be 
first well fermented under very low heat before they can be heated and colored 
free of bad smells. A few years ago tobacco was not used until it was two or 
more years old. Every Summer which it laid in the eases the tobacco fermented 
more or less, and thus lost some of its rank elements. Had we such old tobaccos 
to resweat and color to-day, we might wet it and commence the process at ninety 
degrees, without danger of stinking the tobacco. An apparatus must be guided 
by both intelligent and experienced hands, and this work is to serve that purpose 
by directing you how to proceed and giving you my experience ; and if you will 
read it carefully until you are thoroughly familiar with its contents, before you 
commence operations, and then watch the results of your own efforts, you will 
not have the least difficulty in meeting with perfect success, and secure results 
far beyond your expectations. There is no such thing as fail about this process. 
An apparatus may be ever so perfect, yet to operate it successfully and produce 
dark, glossy colors, free of bad odors, the operator must have some knowledge 
of fermentation and the action of high heats on the tobacco. One might as well 
say of the hundreds of machines now on the market that are perfect in them- 
selves, and that require a special training in order that a person may successfully 
operate them, that they are not perfect, simply because an ignorant person 
cannot do the same with them that a properly instructed person can ; but when 
a person invents an apparatus or a machine, and cannot himself instruct others. 



10 TOBACCO CURING AND ItESWKATING. 

how to operate it successfully for that which it was intended to do, it must be a 
very poor invention, and worth little tothe public, yet any number of such tobacco- 
sweating apparatuses have been patented, all claiming some particular merit, yet 
all of them put together worth nothing. 

After tobacco has been cased or wet, then bulked or piled o'- packed into 
cases, and left to itself for a few days, it should get warm in the mass, but it 
cannot get into a heat or sweat, or fermentation, as I call it, unless the atmos- 
phere of the room in which the tobacco is placed be warm enough to induce or 
start the sweat. Therefore, the moist or wetted tobacco must be placed in a 
room whose temperature should be at least over 60 degrees. At this tempera- 
ture it may require several days, say six to ten days, before the tobacco gels 
nicely warmed through. If the temperature is kept at about 70 to 75 degrees, 
the tobacco will go into a sweat in from three to six days, and that is quick 
enough to answer my purpose. Nothing is gained by attempting to force the 
natural sweat or fermentation beyond that point. You must always bear in 
mind the fact that so long as the tobacco remains cold in the mass it is not 
making any progress towards a better quahty. It is not throwing oS its rank, 
wild or objectionable elements, as it must do if you wish to get dark colors by 
the use of low heats, or dark colors and the leaf free from empyreumatic or 
objectionable odors or steam smell. As I depend upon fermentation or natural 
sweat to accomplish this result, and it will not be accomplished so long as the 
tobacco remains cold, therefore, you must know or find out about the day the 
tobacco gets into a heat or sweat, and then let the tobacco remain undisturbed 
in that condition and continue the sweat for several days, or until it has lost its 
green, raw, rank, wild elements, and smells good and strong of ammonia, be- 
fore steaming the box of tobacco for colors. To better illustrate the matter, I 
will say that I case or wet a case of tobacco to-day, stand it on the casing board 
two hours, then lay it snugly and nicely, without pressing it, into a case or box 
large enough to hold the whole case. I cover the tobacco with boards, 
and then set the box of tobacco into a warm room, the thermometer in which 
shows a temperature of 65 to 70 degrees. I let the tobacco remain there, say 
six days. I then examine the tobacco by putting my hand down into the tobacco; 
I find it is cold. I leave it for three days more, and then examine it the same 
way. I then find the tobacco to be nice and hot, and sweating well. 

Thus far I have consumed nine days. Now that it has commenced to sweat 
I can tell how long it will take to sweat out the rank elements, and fit it for the 
coloring process, so the leaf may be colored as dark as I wish without producing 
a bad odor in the tobacco. If the tobacco be of a very fine quahty and thin 
leaf, and NOW smells good, I continue this natural sweating four to six days, 



TOBACCO CURING AND RESWEATING. 11 

and then put the wood case and all into a steam chamber, and steam it four days 
at 110 degrees, and then continue the steaming two to four or more days at 120 
degrees, or until the colors suit. If the leaf be of medium quality, and does not 
NOW smell quite as good as it might, I continue the natural sweat about ten days, 
and then steam it as before described. If the tobacco be of a rather wild nature, 
and NOW has a wild green smell, I contniue the natural sweat for about iifteen 
days, and then steam it as above described. If the tobacco be 3A, 4A, 5A or 
6A, Pennsylvania wrapper, or State seed, or Jersey shore, or other leaf of simi- 
lar character, I continue the natural sweating until the leaf has lost very much 
of its gum, and has a strong ammonia smell, and also shows already a decided 
change for the better as to color. This may take fifteen, twenty, or even thirty 
days before the tobacco is ready for a heat to color it. Only have patience. This 
class of long leaf is very expensive, and requires more care and natural sweating; 
and you can well afford to take a little extra time, and thus secure extra fine 
results. 

I cannot too forcibly impress upon your mind the importance of sufficient 
fermentation before treating for coloring. It means an excellent quality, rich, 
lively colors and natural odor, fine looking cigars, and if you are dealing in leaf, 
a larger profit. Fermentation or natural sweat may be hastened somewhat, but 
you have nothing to gain by it beyond the point to which I have directed you to 
carry it, and should you attempt to hasten it beyond that point you would be 
more likely to kill it than to do it any good. It will thus be seen that by follow- 
ing this process dark colors can be produced by the use of only 110 to 130 degs. 
of heat, instead of 175 to 213 degs., as by the old method of steam sweating, or 
more properly speaking, the old cooking process. The low heats seem to de- 
velop a coloring matter in the leaf which a comparatively low heat brings out. 
The old process had many disadvantages. The greatest one was that the high 
heat necessary to produce dark colors killed the oily nature of the leaf, robbing 
it of its lustre. There is not an objectionable feature about my process, iniless 
it be that it takes more time to now sweat it than it formerly did to cook it. 

The several apparatuses and processes which are described in this book are 
patented, and all persons using any part or all of the same without my license 
will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Any person desiring to use 
them honestly will be dealt with in a very liberal spirit. I can do you a great 
deal of good in your business, and all I ask is a fair remuneration for my many 
yeai"s' services and the vast amount of money I have expended in bringing the 
apparatuses and processes to a scientifie perfection, and yet keeping them so 
simple that any one with ordinary intelligence who will carefully read this book 
a few times, and be aided by a little practical experience, will be able to proceed 
successfully on all kinds of tobacco. 



12 TOBACCO CURING AND RESWEATING. 

Once you understand the principle and necessity and beneficial effect of fer- 
mentation, or the natural sweating of tobacco before it is subjected to a heat of 
90 degrees, you will then be able to do splendid work, and not until then, so you 
must first understand how to conduct fermentation. This is done by first wet- 
ting or easing the tobacco with clean water or solutions of chemicals, and thea 
piling it in a warm room or packing it into eases, and then placing the cases in 
a room where the temperature is not below 60 degrees and not above 90 degrees; 
a medium heat of about 70 to 75 degrees will do excellent work, and a room 
heated to such a degree is not too hot to work in at any time of the year, and by 
using my apparatuses and processes that will be the greatest degree of heat your 
workmen will be compelled at any time to work in. No special room is neces- 
sary during the warm weather, and during cold weather you must have a warm 
room for fermenting your tobacco, and it is very important that it should not be 
heated to over 90 degrees, as the higher heat will dry out the tobacco too much, 
and other ways do more harm than good. A small stove will heat quite a large 
room up to 70 degrees temperature. After your tobacco has been cased or wet, 
it must go into a heat or sweat or fermentation, and remain in that heat or nat. 
ural sweat several days before it is fit to g© into the apparatus or be subjected to 
over 90 degrees of heat. 

The secret of successfully sweating tobacco and producing rich, glossy, dark 
colors, does not lie in the use of steam or a high degree of heat, but in the 
proper treatment of the tobacco before a high heat is applied to it, and what I 
mean by a high degree of heat is, any degree that will kill fermentation, which 
depends somewhat upon the age or condition of the tobacco. New or uncured 
tobacco must be subjected only to very low degrees of heat until the raw ele- 
ments of the leaf have beeen eliminated, neutralized or destroyed. The safest 
rule is to commence fermentation at the lowest degree, about 65 to 70 degrees, 
and slowly but gradually work your way up, only so fast as the nature of the to- 
bacco will admit. So soon as you use a heat high enough to kill natural sweat 
or fermentation, the tobacco will commence to smell bad, and it will continue to 
smell worse and worse as the high heat is continued. Fermentation not only 
makes tobacco smell good, thereby improving its quality, but it also develops the 
coloring matter in the leaf, and it can be carried to such an extent with sufficient 
moisture to heep the tobacco from drying out, that very low degrees of heat will be 
sufficient to produce very dark colors. Taking these facts Into consideration, 
you will readily see why I lay so much more stress and importance upon first 
properly and thoroughly fermenting your tobacco, than I do in the use of an ap- 
paratus, for if the first is well done, the apparatus cannot fail to do its work; 
but if fermentation is not well done, the apparatus cannot do what you wish it 



TOBACCO CURING AND RESWEATING. 13 

to. Unfermented tobacco will stink when it is heated. The heat causes the 
formation of an oil in the leaf, which is the same as that which forms in an old 
pipe, and has the same poisonous properties. Fermentation, either natural or 
chemical, eliminates or neutralizes the elements of the leaf from which the bad 
odor-producing oil is formed. 

I would caution you not to attempt too much at the start in the way of 
using heat. Do not try to use a high heat simply because you have facilities 
for producing it. A saturated atmosphere, such as I get in my apparatuses, 
acts very differently on tobacco from one that is only partly moist or one that is 
dry; and it is much better that you first get familiar with the low heats, as you 
will find that by conducting the process carefully many tobaccos need not go 
into the apparatus at all, except it be for one day or so for the sole purpose of 
kiUing and arresting fermentation, so that after the tobacco is colored and is 
repacked it will not be likely to go into a second sweat which might destroy it. 
Sweat your first cases after they have been fermented and while they are in the 
apparatus, as follows: First four days at 110 degrees; then four days at 120 
degrees; the last heat may be continued until the colors suit you. Occasionally 
a case of tobacco may need 140 to 150, or 160, or 170 or 180 degrees for a few 
hours on the last or seventh or eighth day — for instance. Eastern Havana seed 
goods. Experience will teach you that, but the heat should not be raised if by 
so doing the tobacco will be made to smell bad. If the tobacco shows a tendency 
to smell bad do not raise the heat, as that will surely make it worse. Always 
remember that the lower heats with plenty of natural sweating or fermentation 
beforehand give a natural smelling tohaceo, and the most lively, glossy colors. So 
be careful and certain to continue the fermentation of your tobacco until it has lost 
all rankness, rawness and all bad smeUs be fore you put it into the apparatus for 
colors; andwhen you do put it into the apparatus the tobacco must be in a heat, a 
good natural sweat. Under no circumstances must you attempt to sweat for 
colors by applying a high heat to cold tobacco, whether it be first fermented 
or not. 

The principle I work on is that fermentation destroys the elements of the 
leaf, which cause it to smell bad when highly heated, and in applying high heat 
the tobacco should first be in a heat of fermentation , and the higher heats then 
gradually worked up to in proportion, as fermentation may have more or less 
done its work. The more perfect that fermentation has done its work, that is 
the longer it is allowed to run its natural course the higher the degree of heat 
may be used and yet not produce a bad smell on the tobacco, yet fermentation 
need not go so far as to take too much gum and life from the leaf. When the 
tobacco has fermented to such an extent that it will not swell on a cigar when 



14 TOBACCO CURING AKD RKSWEATING. 

used as a wrapper, and has lost its rank, wild elements to such an extent that 
dark colors ma}' be produced or brought out by the use of a high heat without 
producing objectionable odors, then it has fermented enough to answer my pur- 
pose. 

My main object ia revising and re-writing my original book of instructions is 
to re-write all parts of the work that related to the degree of heat to be used on 
the tobacco while it is in the apparatus or colormg process, also to more fully 
instruct my patrons in the art of curing, resweating and coloring tobaccco, and 
to avoid burning it or oversweating it, and the steam smell, Kentucky smell, or 
bad odor (empyreumatic) which all steam sweated tobaccos have, which are not 
sweated by my patented processes. "When the book was first written, the tobacco 
being then resweated was older, had more age than that which is now in the 
market and being rehandled, and it would stand more heat without injury to it. 
Each year since the commencement of my resweating business has reduced the 
stock of old goods very rapidly, until now there is hardly any tobacco used that 
is but very little more than a year old from the time it was cut from the field; 
much of it has considerably less age, and as younger tobacco must be subjected 
to a much lower degree of heat than old goods, I have each year reduced the heat 
used upon tobacco to color it until now I have probably reached the minium or 
lowest temperature. Yet I have endeavored to so instruct you that you can 
use any temperature necessary to fully and successfully develop any tobaccos 
you may be called upon to handle. 

Simple Fermentation of tobacco by wetting the tobacco with clean water 
will accomplish my purpose provided fermentation is continued long enough, but 
it very often requires many weeks, and if the tobacco be pretty moist it would be 
apt to become tender, and if the tobacco be not rather moist the ferment would be 
apt to become exhausted before the tobacco had become sufficiently sweated. 
It would then be so dry that another wetting would be necessary in order to con- 
tinue fermentation, as fermentation can exist only so long as the proper condi- 
tions are supplied, namely, heat and moisture. Now, if we look closely into the 
result of natural sweating or fermentation of vegetable matter, we find that one 
of its products is ammonia, but in order to p"oduce the ammonia some of the 
vegetable matter (whether it be tobacco or any other substance) must necessarily 
become decomposed, destroyed, rotted; therefore, if tobacco be made wet and 
sweated or fermented sufficiently to produce ammonia from its own elements in 
sufficient quantity to answer our purpose, it stands to reason that the leaf so 
treated would be very likely to come from the process in tender condition. Am- 
monia being a natural product in naturally fermented tobacco it certainly can do 
no harm to use the same substance on tobacco in imitation of nature's process. I 



TOBACCO CORING AND RESWEATING. 15 

have found by experiment that ammoniacal fermentation can be set up and es- 
tablished as soon as the tobacco has been made wet with a solution of carbonate 
of ammonia and left in an atmosphere whose temperature may range between 
CO and 90 degrees Fahrenheit. So soon as the tobacco gets into a heat or sweat 
the ammonia permeates the whole mass, removes all rawness and rankness, all 
wild taste and smell, and greatly improves the quality of all domestic or rank 
tobacco and without injury to the fibre or strength of the leaf. I also find that 
the ammonia, being an alkali, saponifies the fats and oils of the tobacco, where- 
by dark colors are more easily produced and the color and appearance of the 
leaf is more lively and of a rich, glossy appearance. 

This ammoniaciil fermentation brings about the desired result in so short a 
time, compared with natural sweat, that the leaf has not time to get tender; 
therefore, since the discovery of this very important process, I have treated all my 
tobaccos by it. It required very many experiments to determine the best quantity 
to use, as well as the best degree of heat to use. As ammonia boils at 130 or 140 
degrees of heat, it is much easier to drive it all out of the tobacco and waste it 
than to retain it for the proper length of time, or until the colors are as dark as 
we may wish them to be; therefore, care must be taken that a heat of over 140 
degrees be not used, except but for short periods of time, that the ammonia be 
not entirely exhausted or driven out of the tobacco until the desired shade of 
color is produced. 

Have a little patience. Do not expect to learn all relating to the process on 
the first cases you try, but study each case, note the results, and make a memo- 
randum, which you can refer to. Be very particular to have all work done in 
the nicest manner. You cannot put too much labor on your goods; it will all 
show in the final result. Read this work until you are perfectly familiar with it. 
Compare results; you will always find something to learn. The more pride you 
take in it, the better you will be satisfied. 

I have endeavored to be so plain in my instructions that you cannot go 
astray; and I trust I have succeeded in my object. If in any way I have not, 
you will please be guided by instructions on page 39, and greatly obhge, 
Your obedient servant, 

C. S. PHILIPS. 



SOLUTION FOR CASING OR WETTING TOBACCO. 

I find the following solution gives excellent results, and it should be used on 
all domestic tobaccos. It also works as well on Sumatra, Java and other 
tobaccos of like character. 

Take four (4) pounds of carbonate of ammonia, break it into small pieces, and 



16 TOBACCO CUKING AKD KESWEATING. 

put into a barrel which holds 45 gallons. Fill the barrel with cold water and stir 
it occasionally until the ammonia is dissolved; then it is ready for use. Do not 
make up this solution faster than you want it for use, as it loses its strength by 
standing. It should be made fresh every day or two, and if you are casing only 
small quantities of tobacco at a time, and several days ajjart, you can make up 
a smaller quantity of the solution, say one pound of ammonia and eleven gallons 
of water, and what you have left after you have done casing, you can keep for 
future use by putting it in a tight barrel or keg, and put the bung in tight; in 
this way the solution will keep as long as you may wish. The better vessel to 
keep it in is a carboy, which is a glass vessel holding ten to twelve gallons and 
enclosed in a wooden box. They can be had at any drug store at less cost than 
a ten gallon keg. If you cannot get one, I can send you one. The question will 
will very naturally arise, " Why do you use ammonia?" and without going in- 
to any scientific details, and in as plain language as I know how, I will give you 
my experience in the matter and show you how you may prove to your entire 
satisfaction by a few practical experiments, that I am perfectly correct in mak- 
ing the assertion that ammonia is good for our seed leaf tobacco. That in no 
way is it an injury to it. That, as a matter of fact,' it is a natural constituent 
of all well cured tobacco — and that in the proper use of this fact lies the whole 
secret of producing as dark colored tobacco as you may wish, and of a natural 
smell and flavor, and without the use of any artificial coloring matter. 

There are at least three ways to impregnate or get ammonia into tobacco. My 
old method was to sweat the tobacco as dark as I wanted it, using only plain 
water casing, and steam heat from 150 to 200 deg. This made the tobacco 
stink, or have the steam or Kentucky smell. I then shook the tobacco out and 
hung it on pins which were two inches apart. These pins were French wire 
nails {l]4,) one and one-half inches long, driven through a half-inch slat, (2) two 
inches wide and four feet long. The pins or nails were slanted a little when 
they were driven in, so that when the slat was put in place, the points of the 
pins pointed a little upward, the slat, being one-half inch thick and the pins one 
and a half inches long, left one inch to spare on which the hand of tobacco 
could be placed, The hands were placed on the pins in such a way that the pin 
went through the tie of the hand. I then used a large tight box four feet wide, 
six feet high, and ten to twelve feet long; one end was used for a doorway. 
Four inches from the top of the box, on each side, I had a one-inch strip, two 
inches wide, the whole length of the box, and another such strip about the 
middle of the box. These strips are for the four feet slats to rest on. This 
arrangement allows two tiers of tobacco to be hung the whole lengih of the box, 
.and it would hold two to three cases of tobacco. 



TOBACCO CURING AND KESWEATING. 17 

In order that the tobacco should not hang too closely together, a blank slat 
with no pins on it one inch wide and a half inch thick, and four feet long, was 
placed between each slat filled with tobacco. This blank slat kept the tobacco 
slats one inch apart, and the pins being two inches apart, allowed a free circu- 
lation of air all around every hand. After I had hung in the tobacco as 
described, I placed four shallow iron pans, each having one to three pints of 
aqua ammonia, in various parts of the box underneath the tobacco, and closed 
up the door and let it hang there over night, and the next morning I packed it 
into regular cases. The gas from the ammonia water would fill the box and be 
absorbed by the tobacco, and after this tobacco had been packed a few days, the 
tobacco would have a good smell; the ammonia having driven all bad smells 
away. The greatest objection to this process is the expense, as it takes consid- 
erable ammonia, and necessitates the handling of the tobacco to hang it up. 
The process of hanging has one great advantage, and that is, if fine resweated tobacco 
is shaken out while it is pretty icarm , the leaf is then perfectly free; and if it is hung 
up in the manmr above described for a few hours, and the door of the box left open 
so the tobacco gets a little air (no ammonia need be used), the tobacco will gain so 
very much in strength of leaf that many more lorappers may be cut from it. 

Every person who resweats any fine wrappers should build one of these boxes 
large enough, and have enough of slats with the pins in them to hold at least one 
or two cases. It will be the best investment you could make, ^ou can then 
case or wet a fine case of tobacco without any fear, for you know that if it should 
be too wet to pack at once when it comes from the process, you can shake it out 
and hang it up in a few minutes, and dry it off just as much as you choose to. 
A case of tobacco hung up as described, and left hanging over night in ordinary 
weather — not cold — with the door of the box left open, will lose from thirty to 
forty pounds of moisture, which is equal to about four gallons of water. The 
simple shaking out of a hot case, whose temperature in the sweat-room was 140, 
and at once repacking it, will cause it to lose about fifteen pounds, or equal to 
two gallons of water. 

The second ammonia process I tried was good in its result, but too expen- 
sive. The tobacco did not require any extra labor in handling it, but it re- 
quire more ammonia. The process was simply this : I kept the atmosphere of 
the rooms or sweat houses constantly impregnated with ammonia gas by feeding 
ammonia into the rooms or apparatus as often as it was necessary; that was 
determined by the size of the room, also by the degree ot heat used. A pound 
of ammonia salts or a few pounds of aqua ammonia would last but a very little 
while. I also had a large retort heat by steam and connected to my sweat- 
rooms by iron pipes. In this retort I manufactured my ammonia gas and fed 
it into my sweat-rooms as they needed it and as fast as they consumed it. 



18 TOBACCO COKING AHD RESWEATING. 

The third and last one I tried is the one I first described, that is, the solution 
of carbonate of ammonia in which I case my tobacco. It has proved cheap and 
& perfect success. The ammonia salts which are dissolved in the casing water, 
is converted into ammonia gas as soon as the tobacco is heated through j and if 
the case is pretty tight in which the tobacco is packed, the ammonia gas escapes 
so slowly that it requires several days to drive it all out, and before it has all 
gone the colors have become dark enough and the process is ended. 

It is not absolutely necesary that ammonia should be added to the water for 
wetting the tobacco in order to have the tobacco smell of ammonia, or show that 
ammonia is in the tobacco ; for if you wet your tobacco with clean water only 
and pack it away a few weeks, and keep the temperature at 75 to 90 degrees, 
you will find upon examining the tobacco that it smells strong of ammonia. 
You will notice also that all the rank, wild elements of the tobacco have disap- 
peared and the tobacco about that time shows its best quality. Ammonia also 
saponifies or cuts up the oils and fatty substances which were in the tobacco; 
brightens and enlivens the colors, and leaves no dej^osit on the leaf. I have often 
heard it said that ammonia makes the tobacco gray; that it leaves a whitish or 
gray powder on the leaf, but such is not the fact. Ammonia leaves no residue 
upon evaporation. One thing is certain, and that is, tobaccos that do not show 
the presence of ammonia, are more rank and wild, and are of inferior quality to 
those that do show it. There is such a thing as tobacco getting too much natu- 
'iolsiueat, too much ammonia being developed, and that would cause the tobacco 
to become tender and finally rotten. Therefore the process must be watched, 
the thicker and more gummy the leaf, the longer it may sweat; while the thin, 
fine grades need much less time for sweating. 

I have before remarked that ammonia is formed in the tobacco while it is 
undergoing a natural sweat at 75 or 90 degrees of heat. I will here remark that 
had that same tobacco been sweated by a higher degree of heat, say 110 to 140, 
no ammonia would have been formed in the tobacco — at least none could be 
noticed in it — for the reason that the higher degree of heat would drive it out or 
destroy it as fast as it could be formed. So you will plainly see what a great 
mistake it is to case your tobacco one day, pack it the next, and put it into sweat 
the next, at heat above 90 degrees, as it takes several days' natural sweating to 
produce the ammonia and sometimes several weeks. 

If tobacco is put into sweat under high heats, 110 and upwards, before it has 
been cased with the ammonia solution and before it has sweated naturally a few 
days under heats from 75 to 90 degi-ees, or before the ammonia has time to fully 
develop itself, the tobacco will come from the sweat smelling disagreeably; it 
will have what is called a steam smell or Kentucky smell. This bad smell was 



TOBACCO CURING AND RESWEATING. 19 

the cause of all the trouble with the previous process, and was, by almost every- 
one, supposed to be caused by chemicals being used to color the tobacco; but I 
have shown you that no chemicals are at all necessary to make tobacco as dark 
as we wish. Formerly we did not understand that natural or ammoniacal fer- 
mentation or sweat, would drive out and destroy all the wild, rank elements of 
the tobacco which caused the bad smell. Now that we do understand how to 
sweat our tobacco sweet and natural in smell and flavor, we have only to follow 
such simple and natural laws of nature as I have laid down for you to follow, 
and the closer you follow them, and the more you notice and study the results 
of each case, the better work you will be able to do and the more pleasure and 
satisfaction it will give you in doing it. 

The above are ray reasons why I use the ammonia in the water used for 
wetting tobacco by my process; as I can thus do as much in afeio days as would 
naturally require several weeks. I have sliown you that ammonia is developed 
or made under 60 to 90 degrees of heat, and that all heats over and above 110 
vaporize it, drive it out, and destroy it. I have also shown you that a7n7nonia 
leaves no deposit upon evaporation; no trace is left behind to injure the tobacco 
or even show that it had ever been used. So you now know how the make it in 
the tobacco, and how to get rid of or drive it out, and this latter part is quite 
necessary, for we only want to use enough ammonia in our casing water to last 
until the tobacco has sweated long enough to bring out the colors as dark as we 
may wish. And as this requires heats from 110 to 120, it is very easy to see that 
the ammonia is very rapidly destroyed, and all the pains possible should be taken 
to prevent the ammonia being driven out faster than is absolutely necessary. 
This can be aceompushed by packing your tobacco in tight cases. The tighter 
they are the less or shwer will the ammonia escape, and the sioeeter will your 
tobacco sweat. You will also learn to graduate the strength of your ammonia 
solution to suit the nature of your tobacco to be operated upon. 

Should you at any time have extra rank tobacco, or that which requires an 
extra degree of heat, say 150 to 190, like Havanna seed or ground leafy goods, 
you would need to use a stronger solution, say 6 pounds of ammonia to the barrel 
of water. You will also see that the object is to use just enough ammonia to 
carry the tobacco through the sweat and have it come from the sweat-room hav- 
ing a natural smell, that is, a slight smell of ammonia. It is better to use the 4 
pound solution of ammonia on all goods, and allow the ranker ones more time 
to ferment than to use a stronger solution of ammonia. 

CASING TUBS. 
This needs no particular description. It should be at least as large as an 
ordinary wash tub, and hold at least twenty (20) gallons. It should be large 



20 



TOBACCO CURING AND RESWEATTNG. 



enough to allow the hands of tobacco to be drawn through the solution in the 
tub, without the tobacco being forced into such contact with the inner sides of 
the tub as to break the tobacco. Many tobaccos are so dry that it is necessary 
to dip them wholly under the water, or holding the hands of tobacco by their 
butts, dip the tobacco tips first, nearly up to the tie. The casing tub should be 
of sufficient capacity both in M'idth and depth to allow of the above practice. 
The ammonia solution must never he mired in the casing tub, tut always in a sepa- 
rate vessel or harrel, and dipped from the harrel in ichich it was mixed into the 
casing tub. This precaution will always insure a solution of even strength,, which 
is quite important. 




CASING BOARD. 
The above cut represents a casing board, on which to stand your tobacco 
after it has been wet by dipping. It should contain thirty-six (36) square feet; 
the most convenient sizes are four (4) feet wide and nine (9) feet long, or three 
(3) feet wide by twelve (12) feet long; this will hold four hundred (400) pounds 
of tobacco (one ease) when it is stood upon its heads as represented, only very 
close together. The side A is eighteen (18) inches high, and straight up and 
down. The headboard B is the same height, but slants back a little so the 
tobacco will not fall forward; tlie side C is six (6) inches high, and is the side on 
which the caser stands; i) is a trough to carry the water or casing into the tub 
E. The board rests on two supports FF; the back one should be a few inches 
the highest, to give the board pitch enough to carry any water quickly into the 
trough D and tub E. 

CASING OR MOISTENING TOBACCO. 

It is rather a difficult task to say to what extent tobacco should be wet for 

sweating without seeing the tobacco to be operated upon, and thus being guided 

by its needs to fully develop it, and by its nature as to what it will stand, and no 

one will expect me to lay down an infallible rule. Always stand it up on the 



TOBACCO CtTKING AND UESWEATING. 21 

casing board at^once, after wetting it. Never lay it in piles unless it has first 
been stood up on the board and well drained off. 

If the tobacco be a good, strong leaf, it is a fair rule to bring it back to its 
marked weight; this can be accomplished by taking the tobacco in your hand 
by the butts and drawing it right through the water and at once standing it 
straight up and down on the casing-board as shown in the cut, only close to- 
gether. 

If the tobacco should be very dry and hard, hold the tobacco under the water 
a few seconds; but if the leaf be thin, fine and large like some of our Connecti- 
cut goods, and the tobacco is to be kept for sale, it would hardly be safe to give 
it so much casing. On such goods it is better to have them run twenty pounds 
under marked weights than to have them spoil. If the leaf to be sweated shows 
a disposition to be tender, and is old goods, a fair casing will not hurt it, provid- 
ing you watch it, and as soon as it gets fairly warm after it is cased, pack it into 
your tight case; let it stand forty-eight (48) hours in a warm ^\a.ce, ov until the 
tobacco gets hot in the case, or into a natural sweat, and then put it into the sweat 
room or apparatus. Run it the first day at a heat of 110 degrees, and the 
second day at 120, and the third day, and until the colors suit you, run it at 170 
degrees of heat, being careful not to run it long enough to exhaust the ammo- 
nia and make it smell bad. 

Should the goods to be sweated be new goods, and show a disposition to be 
tender, or old goods that are fine leaf and matted so they will not shake out 
easily, put them, cases and all, in their original condition, into the sweat-room, 
or apparatus for forty-eight (48) hours at a heat of 140 degrees; this will warm 
the goods nicely through, and dry the sap out of the new goods, and soften up 
the old so that they will be very easily shaken out, and all the leaf will be free and 
made much stronger that before it was warmed up. Now while the tobacco is hot, 
shake it out well and sort out any that is not fit for sweating. Lay out each case 
by itself, in one pile, say eight feet long, butts all one way; this is done so that 
the pile will not be too high and heavy, so it will cool quickly, and the butts and 
tips get nicely dried off. Let it lay another forty-eight (48) hours, by that time 
the tobacco has got cold, and you can then case it as you think it needs. No 
tobacco should be wet or cased while it is hot, the pores of the leaf are then open 
and the tobacco would absorb too much water; neither must warm water or 
casing be used on tobacco, nor must the tobacco be swung off after dipping 
or casing; it is only iinnecessary labor and does no good, in fact, it does harm 
by breaking the tobacco. Stand it on the casing board on the heads, and all the 
water will run off that is not needed to sweat it. 

If the tobacco be gummy and fleshy, and only soft enough to shake out 



aa TOBACCO CURING AND RESWEATING. 

easily, it may be eased by drawing it right through the water. If the tobacca 
be a red, fleshy, or very light colored leaf, case it by dipping it into the water 
tips first, nearly up to the tie — one and two A. Pennsylvania goods that are 
dry or red should always be dipped the same way. Connecticut or other fine 
long leaf goods that may be too moist to require a "draw through" dip, and 
yet not moist enough to require being first heated, shook out and dried off be- 
fore being wet or cased, may be cased by dipping the tobacco into the water tips 
first, so it will be wetted half way or two-thirds way up to the tie, or so far as 
the leaf is fleshy. Draw the tobacco straight out of the water and hold it in that 
position a few seconds, to allow the great bulk of the water to run off the tips 
of the leaf, then stand it on the casing board, when enough water will run 
towards the tie and butt to wet that part of the leaf sufiiciently. Let all to- 
bacco stand on the board two to four hours, so that the water may have a 
chance to equally distribute itself downwards on the leaf. This will prevent 
water spots and stains. The tips will also dry off enough, so that they will not 
oversweat in the cases, but they should not be dry enough to be brittle and! 
break off when they are put into cases. If the tobacco should, from any cause, 
stand on the board until the tips get too dry, then sprinkle or spray them a little 
while before the tobacco is to be taken off the casing board. The tip part of 
tlie leaf being the more delicate and easily sweated, requires less moisture, and 
should not go into sweat or be packed too wet. 

Many fine tobaccos, especially Connecticut, are very thin, woody and destitute- 
of gum or body towards the heels, butts or tie of the leaf. If such a tobacco 
should get a butt dip and the thin part of the leaf be made very wet, as it 
must be in the butt dipping, that portion of the leaf would be the first to rot if 
left long in the case after it was sweated. This can be avoided in wetting such 
tobacco by dipping its tips first into the water but allowing only so much of the 
leaf to go into the water as is fleshy and gummy enough to stand wetting. 
Draw the hands straight out of the water, and let enough of the casing water 
run off the tips back into the casing tnhhefore standing iton the casing board, so 
that not too much water will run back to the ties while it stands on the boards 
waiting for the tips to get in order for packing. 

Do not be afraid of casing or wetting your fleshy tobacco too much. The- 
standing of it on the board will allow of all excess of water to run off on to the 
board and back to the casing tub. In casing, take only as many hands of 
tobacco into your hands for dipping at one time as you can nicely reach around 
with your two hands. If your tobacco should be dry, or a sandy ground leaf, 
or a very light colored leaf, or an old dead leaf, the casing should be very heavy, 
Draw the tobacco right through the water, and i-egulate the amount of water 



TOBACCO CURING AND RESWEATING. 23 

you wish to leave on the leaf by the time you allow it to stand on the board, and 
drain off before boxing or piling it. Such goods will not color unless they be 
first made wet, to give them new life. If the tobacco should be very dry, so 
much so that it cannot be shaken out without breaking the leaf, then it should 
be soaked in the water a few seconds, according to how dry it may be. The dan- 
ger in re-sweatlng does not lie so much in wetting it too much, if you stand it 
up afterwards, as in overheating it and cooking it by using too high a heat. 
That is what has killed all steam processes of sweating, the tobacco gets cooked 
without being cured or sweated. 

There is very little danger of your casing or wetting your tobacco too much, that 
is, to go through my process' as I have described it. When a case has been 
sweated enough and has colors to suit you, it then is taken from the process or 
apparatus, and after laying, say one hour, the tobacco is then shaken out and 
laid in a pile with the butts all one way ready to be packed again into its origi- 
nal case. This shaking out of the tobacco while it is hot allows a great deal of 
its moisture to escape in the form of steam or vapor, which was put into it when 
it was wet or cased. Then, again, if the tips should at this time feel i-ather too 
moist, you can dry them off well before packing them by simply allowing the 
tobacco to remain in pile for a sufficient time. If the leaf should be extra fine 
and thin, and it should come from the process too wet, shake it out at once 
while it is at its greatest heat so it will lose as much vapor as possible, then 
hang up all the hands on pins on slats, as before described for hanging for the 
ammonia gas process, and let it hang until it is dry enough to suit you, then 
pack into its case. 

Long tobacco should not be taken out of its case and wet and then forced into 
a case too short for it. I do not like to use a press at all on wet or soft tobacco. 
Let the packer get into the ca^e and knee it in carefully; this way of packing 
gives each layer sufficient pressure without pressing the tobacco together suffi- 
ciently to force the gum and juice out, and thus avoids matting or sticking to- 
gether of the leaves. 

BOXING OR BULKING OF TOBACCO FOR A SHORT NATURAL 
SWEAT OR FERMENTATION. 

After your tobacco has stood on the casing board long enough for the water 
to get well drained off, and the tips show that they are drying off, it should then 
be taken from the board and bulked or piled up nicely, so it will go into a natural 
sweat. I find it more convenient as well as cheaper, and I get a more satisfac- 
tory result, by keeping each case of tobacco by itself. Tobacco certainly sweats 
better in small quantities than in larger bulks. I therefore take the tobacco 



34 TOBACCO CURING AKD EESWEATING. 

from the casing board and lay it straight and evenly into boxes forty-four (44) 
inches square and twenty-four (24) inches deep, inside measurement. If you 
have seed leaf cases and do not wish to go to the expense of these boxes, they 
will answer as well bv building them up fifteen or eighteen inches. This will allow 
you to put in one such box or case one whole case of tobacco laid in loosely, that 
is, not pressed down any, only lay it in snugly. Keep the butts close together, so 
they will not get too much air around them, and thus be dried out too much 
during the few days of natural sweating. 

The tobacco should he so laid in that the hutts do not touch the wood of the box: 
The better way to accomplish this is to make a false head-board one inch thick, 
to stand in each end of the case while you are laying in the tobacco, and when 
it is all laid in draw out the false head-board- This will leave an air space of 
one inch between the butts and the case; this will prevent the butts moulding 
while the tobacco is getting into a natural heat or sweat. The cases should be 
so handled that the tobacco does not get shook down all to one end. Keep the 
space always equal on each end of the case. The tobacco should also be laid into 
the boxes in such a manner as to be a little rounded off on the top. Generally, 
wrappers are long enough so that the lapping of their tips makes belly enough on 
the tobacco; but, should the tobacco be too short for that, enough hands may 
be laid on the tips to round it off a little. The hands should all lay the same 
way in the box. This prevents the tobacco from water-staining on the tips, for 
if the tips of the leaves lay lower in the box than the butts, the water naturally 
runs to the lowest points, and the tips of the leaves require less moisture than 
any other part of the leaf. 

After you have put into a box or case all you intend to, then cover the tobacco 
with a wood cover; have it made of such a size that it will just fit inside of the 
case. This will keep the top hands from drying out, and if the tobacco should 
not quite fill the box or case, the cover being small enough to fit inside will 
always lay on top of the tobacco, blankets sh ould not be used. They are 
expensive and soon get filled with mold, and impart it to the tobacco. Now 
these boxes or cases must be set or tiered in a warm room where the temperature 
can be kept at about Summer heat, that is, from 70 to 90 degrees of heat for five or 
six days or until the tobacco gets into a good sweat and becomes hot all thy'ough 
the mass, and under no circumstances must it be disturbed before. This allows the 
water to become moi-e evenly distributed through the leaf; do not try to use 
more heat at this stage of the process than I have mentioned. It is not necessary 
that you should try to keep the atmosphere moist while it is sweating naturally 
under this low degree of heat, as the tobacco is wet and packed in tight cases, 
and what little moisture the tobacco may lose will come from the bults only and 



TOliACCO CURING AND RE8WEATING. 25 

be absorbed by the wood, and would not be sufficient to interfere with the 
successful sweating of the tobacco after it is put into the sweat room or appar- 
atus and subjected to a wet heat. In fact, a little drying of the butts at this 
time is rather to be desired, as the butts and ties should come from the process 
in not too wet a condition, and if they should get a little dry, they would 
become moist enough again as soon as the cases were heated through in the 
sweat room or apparatus, by the moisture working from the tobacco toward and 
around the butts. 

This natural fermentation on sweat determines greatly what the quality of the 
tobacco is to be, and the longer this natural sweating is allowed to go on undis- 
turbed, the better the quality of the tobacco will become, more especially if the 
tobacco be Pennsylvania or any other leaf that be heavy, or green, raw and un- 
cured. As soon as the tobacco has got into a nice heat it is ready to repack into 
regular seed leaf cases. If the tobacco being sweated is in a factory, and for 
immediate use, the repacking at this stage of tlie process is unnecessary and may 
be dispensed with. When the tobacco is taken from the casing board, pack it into 
eases that have side boards on them high enough so a whole case may be laid in 
nicely without using a press, cover over with a board cover, let stand in a warm 
place until the mass gets into a good sweat, then press the tobacco down just enough 
to allow you to remove the side boards and put on the original cover, then put 
into sweating chamber soon as it has fermented enough. If it is to be repacked 
into cases, the tobacco should then be examined to see if the tips are not too 
moist. If they should be found to be wet the whole case should be shaken out 
to see that all the leaves are free and in a proper condition to pack for sweating. 
It should be laid in one pile for an hour or more so the air has free access to all 
the tips and butts, and until the tips have dried off sufficiently so the tobacco 
can be packed without breaking any of the tips. If the proper care has been 
taken to have the tips well dried off before the tobacco was taken off the casing 
board, this piling of the tobacco before packing will be unnecessary. 

The box or seed leaf case into which you are to pack your tobacco before 
placing it into the sweat room or apparatus, should be made of wood and suf- 
ficiently tight so as to prevent steam or hot water vapor from coming in contact 
with the tobacco. The idea is to protect the tobacco in any way so as to pre- 
vent any of it from becoming over saturated or too wet. By a tight wood box, 
I do not mean that a box need to be made of matched lumber, as an ordinary 
seed leaf case in good order will answer every purpose, as the wood swells so 
much as soon as it gets into the wet heat that it is practically tight. Should 
there be openings in the case not likely to swell enough to come together, cover 
them over from the inside. The objection to iron, zinc or other metal boxes is, 



26 TOBACCO CURING AND RESWEATING. 

first they are expensive and the gases from the tobacco destroy them very rap- 
idly; secondly, they cannot be handled while they are hot and wood boxes can 
be. The process or the result would be the same in a metal box. I have seen 
it stated that iron or metal boxes in contact with the tobacco tainted it and gave 
the tobacco a bad smell. Such is not a fact. The tobacco is made to smell 
bad from overheating it or heating it too long — 140 degrees of heat will do so 
in time — 210 degrees will do so in a few minutes. 

In packing into cases take plenty of care to lay the hands in very nicely; 
two to four hands at a time, according to the size of the hands; lay them in 
very straight, and let the hutt ends come snug up against the head boards of the 
case you are packing into. Pack it snugly together; put as many hands as pos- 
sible in each layer every time you put in a layer across the case. The idea is to 
pack the tobacco so closely together that the vapor or steam has but very little 
chance to get around the tobacco. In fact, if the cases are so tight that no' 
steam or vapor whatever can get into them at the tobacco, so much the better; 
all we want is, such a moist atmosphere around the cases that the tobacco does 
not dry out. The tobacco has all the necessary moisture from the casing; we 
neither wish to add to it or take any away, consequently the tighter and more 
perfect are the eases into which the tobacco is packed to go into the apparatus, 
the better will be the result. After your tobacco has been packed from the boxes 
into cases that you mean to put into the sweat room or apparatus, you must 
again let it lay in cases and in a warm place at 70 to 90 degrees of heat as before 
described, until each case gets heated through again, which will require from 
two (2) to four (4) days. Now is the time to decide when the tobieeo will be 
fit to go into the sweat room or apparatus. 

If the tobacco is well cured and smells good and strong of ammonia, it is 
ready to be finished off in the apparatus; but so long as the tobacco shows a 
green, raw and tincured condition and doe^i not smell good, or swells, it must not 
go into the apparatus, but must be left to a natural sweat until the ammonia ha» 
driven out all rayikness and a good flavor is established. If you will give 
tobacco a little extra care at this stage of the process, follow the rules I have- 
given you and have a little patience. You will be well repaid for all the trouble 
you may have had by being successful every time. Tobacco cures better under 
a loio heat, that is, more gum is thrown out or decomposed by heats of 60 to 90 
degs. than by the higher degrees; so if you have a leaf that swells, you must get 
the sweUing out by sweating out the gum by fermentation or natural sweat by 
using a low heat as above specified. Heats from 120 up to 180 do not throw off 
any gum, at least not enough to make a swelling leaf burn good during the 
short time which tobacco can be exposed to such high heats without spoiling the 



TOBACCO^CURING AND RESWEATING. 27 

leaf or its strength. Such heats act more to color the leaf a dark color than to 
rid the leaf of any of its gum. So you will see why a leaf that has not much 
gum or none to spare, needs but little natural sweat, and a quicker sweat at the 
higher heats which bring out the color and which run from 140 to 180. 

If a green, raw, uneured tobacco be heated at a temperature of over 90 degrees, 
or high enough to kill fermentation, and for a sufficient length of time the prop- 
erties of the leaf will be decomposed, or changed into an oil called empyreumatic 
oil, which will give to the tobacco a very bad odor, called by the trade steam 
smell, or Kentucky smell. The same tobacco, if in a moist condition, and placed 
in a lower heat, say 70 to 80 degrees F., will go into a natural sweat or fermen- 
tation, and if left to sweat at that temperature, will soon lose all its rank, green, 
wild or uneured elements, and the tobacco may then be subjected to a very high 
heat long enough to color the leaf without stinking it. It is believed that the 
active decomposing or sweating agent is the oxygen contained in the air which 
is held in the pores and cells of the tobacco, and which slowly burns up the 
organic matter contained in the leaf, gum, green, raw and uneured elements 
which produce the bad odor when heated before they have been eliminated by 
oxidation or fermentation. All that is necessary to fully accomplish my purpose 
is that the tobacco be moist and in sufficient bulk or quantity to cause it to heat 
or sweat, and while in a temperature of about 70 degrees Fahrenheit. 

From the foregoing explanation of the action of the different degrees of heat on 
tobacco, you will very readily see why you should keep enough tobacco eased 
ahead so as to give it all the time necessary to get it well cured before you at- 
tempt to finish it off for colors in the apparatus. No tobacco should go into the 
apparatus that has not been cased and in a natural sweat or heat from G to 10 
davs. The better cured your goods are the less time it will talce in the apparatus 
and less expense, and the tetter will he the result. If you want good, rich, lively 
colors, you must pay particular attention to the above facts. It is just as easy to 
keep a few days' stock cased ahead, as it is for one day. Some tobaccos can be 
made ready in six days. For instance, fine thin leaf old Connecticut that has 
no gum to spare, a little experience will enable you to tell exactly all about it. The 
most particular care should be used in sweating long flue Pennsylvania wrap- 
pers. They will not color nicely unless they have been well cased and well 
sweated before they go into the apparatus. 

To satisfy yourself that I am right, you experiment a little this way: After 
your tobacco has been cased and put into piles or boxes and allowed to remain 
so for six days, and then packed into cases, you take one case that has been 
packed three days and put it into the apparatus to finish it off for dark colors 
and make a memorandum just how many hours it is in the apparatus before it 



28 TOBACCO CURING AND RESWEATING. 

gets dark enough to. suit you. Now take another case that has been packed six 
dayS; and then another that has been packed nine days, and you will know how 
much shorter time it requires the older cases to sweat and how much nicer the 
colors are than the first case of the lot you sweated. No positive rule can be 
laid down for sweating tobacco that would apply to all cases. Each one must 
be handled just according to its own peculiarities. The older the tobacco is the 
shorter and quicker the process should be; and the newer the tobacco, the slower 
and longer it shonld be and the less heat you should use. 

When the tobacco has had natural sweat enough to fully develop all the 
good quality there is in it, and does not smell green or uncured, then put the 
case or cases into your room or apparatus to be finished off for dark colors, and 
use a heat as follows : First four days at 110; then continue the process for 
three or four days at 120; then examine them to see if they are dark enough. If 
not dark enough then continue at 120 until they suit you. If the tobacco 
smells good at the end of the sixth or seventh day at 120, and yet not dark 
enough, and you should be in a hurry for the goods, you may continue the pro- 
cess at 140 degrees. If the goods you put into the apparatus be old ones with 
no gum to spare, then the process may be carried on somewhat quicker. Run 
the first day at 110, the second day at 120, and finish off at 160 or 170. Exam- 
ine the tobacco every twelve hours, or night and morning, while using these high 
heats, so that the tobacco does not get processed any longer than is absolutely 
necessary. 

HA.VANA SEED 
should be handled the same as other goods, so far as casing and fermenting 
is concerned ; also while in the sweating apparatus four days at 110, and four 
days at 120, which colors then very nicely, with the exception of Connecticut or 
Eastern goods, which require more heat to fully develop them. After they have 
been fermented and sioeated for eiglit days in the apparatus, as above indicated, 
and do not then show dark enough colors, then finish off all such goods at a heat 
of 175 to 180 degrees, being careful not to prolong the process more than is actually 
necessary, as such heats are apt to produce a deadish black color ; but if the 
tobacco be examined often while using such high heats, say every six hours, the 
darkest colors may be reached and yet have a lively appearance. Great care 
must also be taken that the tobacco is moist enough to allow dark colors to be 
produced or brought out. If the tabacco should be too dry, a greyish color will 
be brought out. 

It is very easy to tell whether or not any tobacco is moist enough, by draw- 
ing a few hands from the mass under treatment and shaking them out a little 



TOBACCO CURIKG AND KESWEATING. 39- 

in the open air. If the tobacco almost instantly assumes a harsh and brittle nature, 
it is too dry to get the colors and there would be no use in further continuing the 
process; but shake the tobacco all out, let it dry off and case it overagain. You 
will very easy reach the colors the second time. Should you find it necessary 
or by accident prolong the process to such an extent as to drive out all the am- 
monia and produce a disagreeable or objectionable smell on the leaf, you can re- 
move the smell by hanging the tobacco and treating with ammonia as before de- 
scribed, or, if the leaf is strong enough to sta nd it, you can hang the tobacco until 
it is dried off pretty well and then case it over again, and as soon as natural 
sweat or fermentation sets in all objectionable odors will entirely disappear, 
which again proves to you how beneficially natural sweating or fermentation 
acts upon tobacco, or you can place a few lumps of ammonia in your sweating 
apparatus, while you are using a very high heat it will cause the room to be 
filled with ammonia gas and keep the tobacco sweet. 

Upon examining any case and finding it dark enough to suit you, you of 
course take it from the process and set it one side to cool off somewhat- if 
not dark enough continue the process. But when you put the cases back into 
the room or apparatus, reverse it, so that the side of the case which was up so 
far during the process, should now be down, as the side which was up will prob- 
ably show that it has colored a little the best. This difference will not be quite 
so apparent where my single case apparatus is used, as the space to be heated is 
so small, there is hardly if any difference of temperature in the apparatus. After 
any case has heen finished and standing out of the process an hour or tioo, it must ie 
nicely shalcen out, then you can at the same time repack it into its original case 
if you so wish, as fast as you shake it out. If the tips or butts are too moist, 
shake it out and let it lay in a pile a little while before repacking it. If you pack 
it again into its original case, use a false head board as described in boxing the 
tobacco, also take out one or two head boards from each end of the case and 
leave them out. This will leave an air space around the butts, and allow them 
to dry off. Tier these cases in a middle tier, po plenty of air can get at the 
butts, and keep them from molding. If your tobacco should mold, it is be- 
cause the air around the tobacco is not dry enough. 

After taking tobacco from the process, and shaking it out and repacking it 
jnto original cases and taking out the headboards, the cases should be placed for 
a few days in some place where the air is dry enough to dry out the butts sufl5- 
ciently to prevent them molding. A little dry heat around the cases for a few 
days is excellent, but not long enough to throw the tobacco into a second sweat. 

Should you have any moldy tobacco and moist, and strong enough to stand 
it, you put it into the sweat room and heat it 48 hours at 170. This will o-en- 



30 TOBACCO CURING AND KESWEATING. 

erally kill mold, unless the tobacco be dry, then there would be no use in try- 
ing it. If you do put the case in to kill the mold, it is to be shaken out and 
repacked afterwards, the same as the other goods that go into the process. An 
excellent way to renovate moldy tobacco is to hang it up on the pins until it is 
thoroughly dry, then give it a good easing, so as to wet all the moldy parts, 
let draw a day or more, then heat 48 to 60 hours in a moist heat at 140 degrees, 
then shake out nicely and hang up again, if too wet to pack with safety. 

The reason why the tobacco should be allowed to stand some little time to 
cool off before it is shaken out is, that if at once, in its hot condition, it was to 
be exposed to the air, it would lose much of its moisture, and the leaf would be 
inclined to thicken up by the pores of the leaf suddenly contracting. It should 
be shaken out nicely before it gets cold, as in its warm state every leaf is freely 
and easily opened by the shaking, whereas, if left to get cold, much of the leaf 
would stick together and soon be like plug tobacco. In Winter weather no hot 
tobacco should stand over night without being shaken out. Should a case get 
cold and sticky, warm it up again at 140 degrees heat, then shake it out. 

As a rule, tobacco that has been cased or wet and let lay in piles or boxes and 
get into a natural heat and then packed into cases, and the cases allowed to stand in 
a warm place or room at a temperature of 70 to 80 degrees, and sweat naturally 
for from 5 to 10 days, and then put into the apparatus and heated in a saturated 
atmosphere for 2 to 4 days, at 110 degrees, and then continued 3 to 4 days at 
120 degrees, will come from the process with a rich, glossy darTc color and nat- 
ural ammonia smell. If such is not the result, or if the leaf should then be of a 
red, grey or dead color, or blister when smoked or smells badly, it will be from only 
one of two causes. Either you did not wet the tobacco enough when you cased 
it or else you did not let the tobacco ferment [or sweat naturally long enough in 
the warm room before you put it into the apparatus. It is very easy for you to 
determine which of the two mistakes you made. 

If the tobacco becomes quickly dry and husky when you take it hot from 
the case and shake it in the air, then you did not case it enough, but if it re- 
mains moist and stretchy, then any bad or unsatisfactory result is caused by you 
not allowing the tobacco to sweat naturally under a low heat, long enough 
before you put it into the apparatus. 

You must be patient and allow the tobacco to fully develop its quality under 
a low heat. We cannot disobey a law of nature without paying for it in some 
way. You will find that tobacco does not improve in quality in proportion to 
the degree of heat you may use on it, but that the wild, rank or green elements 
are destroyed or eliminated more rapidly under a heat ranging not over 90 degs. 
Therefore it is a waste of time and fuel to put the tobacco into the apparatus 



TOBACCO CCRHSTG AND KESWEATING. 31 

before it has first fermented or gone through a natural sweat sufficient to fully 
develop it; and every case should be carefully examined before you put it 
into the apparatus, and if it has any green or raw smell do not put it into the 
apparatus, but put the ease back into the warm room and let it remain there and 
sweat until it does show a good quality, and then put it into the apparatus and 
finish it off for colors as before directed. 



SWEATING SHORT WRAPPERS. 



SHORT A, B AND C STOCK. 

The shorter the leaf or the less length there be to it, the less the heat re- 
quired to produce dark colors. Give them plenty of water, by tip-dipping them, 
and then give them plenty of natural sweat or fermentation, especially if the 
leaf be red and gummy. Then try a few days' heat in the apparatus at 110 de- 
grees; then before you use a higher temperature examine the tobacco. The 
probability is that you will not need to use a higher heat. 



FILLERS AND BINDERS. 
As a rule, fillers, or binders, or sandy ground leaf goods, should Twb be cased 
or wet and re-sweated, except for immediate use as soon as they come from the 
process; they cannot then be kept with any degree of safety: they very easily 
run into mold and rot unless they be hung up and well dried off after they are 
sweated, and before they are repacked into cases. This can easily and cheaply 
be accomplished by making a box with slats and pins drove through them, as 
fully described under the process for treating tobacco to ammonia gas, in the 
first pages of this book. 

But if you do wish to sweat such goods, and hold them for sale, and do not 
know just when they will be worked up, the following rules will prove useful: 
Do not attempt it on new tobacco, that is, goods that are not several months 
old in their cases; they should be what the trade would call old goods. Do not 
case them too heavy; as soon as they get warm rehandle them and pack them, 
and let them stand in their cases, and then put them into process. Sweat them 
the same as you would short wrappers; when they come from the sweat, be sure 
you do not pack them too wet; they should be just nicely soft without being 
wet. Should they feel pretty soft hang them up a little while, as I before de- 
scribed, in the ammonia boxes. The dryer you pack them, of course the more 
surely they will keep. If you pack them to hold for sale, the cases should be 
cut down lengthways, so as to make the ease narrow enough to allow the tobacco 
to be packed in with the butts all against the sides of the case instead of the 



o2 TOBACCO CUKING AND RESWEATING. 

ends, and the tips just nicely lap on each other; use a false board, as before de- 
scribed, so as to leave an air space between the butts and the wood of the case. 
Also leave out a side board on each side, so as to allow plenty of air to get 
around the butts to dry them off. 

This mode of laacking allows every butt to be exposed to the air, and not to 
be paclced in cross packed, the way most short goods are packed into seed leaf 
cases, as the hands in the cross packing cannot dry out fast enough, they first 
mold and then rot, and being in the middle of the case, and lying across the 
tips and finest part of the leaf of the balance of the case, the whole case very 
soon has caught the disease and is worthless. Do not cut the case so narrow as 
to make the tobacco belly up too much in packing it. 

Should the leaf be of a sandy ground leaf style or lacking in gum, and 110 
degrees not seem sufficient to bring out the colors, the process may be continued 
at 160 degrees, but examine the goods every twelve hours while under this heat, 
until they are finished. 

HAVANA TOBACCO. 

The resweating of Havana tobacco by the use of high heats, is not to be 
recommended, it does not agree with the leaf, neither does the leaf require it. The 
leaf is so short that it requires but little heat to develop it sufficiently as the taste 
for colors in Havana goods runs more in the rich dark brown shades, and these 
colors may be brought out nicely by natural sweat or fermentation, after being 
properly cased. In the first place the water used for casing should be soft, 
for the reason that the coloring matter of the leaf is more soluble in soft 
water than in hard, and if the water in your vicinity is hard, you should 
use rain water for casing, or have your hard water treated ciiemically to 
render it soft. This can be done at a trifling expense. Rain and snow 
waters are the purest kinds of natural water. A good water may be known 
by its being fit for cooking purposes, and it will not curdle soap. If your water 
is hard it will curdle soap; but if it be soft it will make a lather of the soap. 
Some think stagnant water the best for casing tobacco; I do not. Water be- 
comes stagnant on account of its impurities, and they act as ferments. All fer- 
ments have a certain life to live like everything else and then die, and I much 
prefer to use the water fresh, and let all the changes of fermentation take place 
while on the tobacco; therefore, in casing Havana tobacco, I use fresh or newly 
drawn soft water. If the tobacco is very dry, dip the whole carat under the 
water for a second or two, and then stand it on the casing board, tips up, to drain 
off and soften up. As soon as the tobacco gets soft enough so the strings can 
be taken off, and the carat loosened out, the hands taken apart without breaking 



TOBACCO CURING AND RESWEATIN6. 33 

the leaf, it is then ready to be cased. Now take three or four hands of tobacco 
in your hands at a time; take hold of them by their heads or butts as they are 
most generally called, and dip the tobacco into your casing tub, tips first, and 
nearly up to say within one inch of the tie. Now if the tobacco be pretty dry, 
hold the hands in the water a little, long enough to count one, two, three. If 
the tobacco should be soft, dip in the hands and draw them out at once, and in 
either case, when you draw the hands out, sicing off all the surplus water, and 
stand the tobacco on the casing board, the same as I have described for seed; 
enough water will run down on to the butts from the leaf to moisten them all 
they need. When the tips, in an hour or so, begin to show dryness, then take it 
from the board, one hand at a time, and pack it straight and snugly into a box 
made expressly for it. So no butts get covered up in packing it, the same as I 
described for sweating fillers. 

Now that you have it all packed into a box, fit a wood cover down on to the 
tobacco, press it down with the hands only, so there will be no belly on the 
tobacco and fasten down the cover. Now set the box in a warm place, as de- 
scribed for the natural sweating of seed leaf. After it has stood for four to six 
days, examine it to see how it is getting along, and if the tips should be too wet 
and sweating too fast, pile it all out for an hour or so to let the tips dry off some- 
what, and repack it the same as before. The more pains you take to pack it 
straight and snug or closely together at the butts, the better will be the heel of 
the leaf sweat and color. The same rule will apply with the same force in pack- 
ing seed leaf. Havana tobacco is very apt to mold after it is cased, especially 
old goods that have but little gum and can only be sweated with safety for im- 
mediate use. If you discover mold spots on the leaf (and it should be exam- 
ined for them every few days until it has sweated enough to suit you) you must 
then put it in your sweat room or apparatus at once and heat it through at 140 
degrees, whicli will require twenty-four (24) hours, then shake it out and use it 
up, the heat will kill the mold and prevent its further progress or development. 
Should you wish to sweat it quicker than the natural process, you can put it 
into your sweat room or apparatus, at 110 degrees of heat. This applies to old 
goods only, after they have sweated naturally a few days. Should the goods be 
new, they must sweat naturally until they are well cured before they can be put 
into artificial heat the same as new seed leaf. 

If your Havana be old and of a dead nature and a dull color, and you wish 
to give it a more lively and glossy appearance, you put into ten gallons of pure 
or clean water two ounces of pure glycerine, and use this solution for casing. 
Should your tobaco be very heavy in leaf and so gummy it swells, and it needs 
a good strong sweat, you can use the following solution to case it in : Water, ten 



34 TOBACCO CURING AKD KESWEATING. 

gallons ; molasses, one quart. Any kind of molasses or syrup, or the same 
quantity of any kind of sugar, will answer the same purpose. The tobacco 
which this solution' is used on must sweat naturally ten or twelve days, then the 
sweet substance or saccharine matter, you will find, will have wholly disap- 
peared, and acetic acid is then in the tobacco in place of the sugar or molasses, 
and the tobacco will have a pleasant sour smell ; two quarts of cider or cider 
vinegar, or sour grape wine of any kind, added to the above solution, will give the 
tobacco a somewhat better smell, but will not improve the tobacco in any other 
way. 

NEW TOBACCO. 

I have tried a great many different ways to cure new tobacco, that is, tobacco 
that has only been dried on the poles after being gathered, and tlien packed into 
cases, but I have so far perfected no process that does away with natural fer- 
mentation, yet I hope to some time in the future. I do not mean to say I have 
made no advancement in curing new tobacco, for we can now manufacture the 
leaf a year or more sooner than was formerly done. Four acres of Massachusetts 
Havana seed was cut the fore part of September, 1879, hung in the shed, dried, 
stripped, packed and shipped to me. It was theu put into my process, sweated 
for dark colors and went into the manufacturers' hands and worked up in 
March, 1880. The plan of i^rocedure, which I can now give you, is as follows : 
After the tobacco has been gathered from the field and dried in the sheds, 
stripped and packed into cases a few days, take a head board from each end of 
the case and place the cases in a room where an even temperature of 70 to 80 
decrees may be kept up, this heat may be dry, so as to suck the .-. - ,■ ure from 
the butts and the large middle vein of the leaf. The heat must only be sufficient 
to keep the tobacco in a natural sweat and dry enough to keep the butts drying 
out, until the big vein for six inches in the case gets as dry and brittle as a pipe 
stem. This will take some time, as much will depend upon how heavy the leaf 
is, and the quantity of green sap in the stem. You will have to decide that after 
it has been under treatment two or three weeks. You can also tell when you are 
using too much heat by the smell the tobacco has. 

Green tobacco is very easily decomposed by even low heatj it has an un- 
natural smell — a stink, a Kentucky smell— which you ought to easily distin- 
guish from the smell of natural sweat. So you will see the importance of not 
trying to force the sweat too much on new tobacco. If you do, you only delay 
the process; for let the heat get too high and a bad smell once established, }-ou 
can only get it out again by a good ammonia casing. Even then it takes a 
natural sweating of many days to wholly get rid of it. You can tell when your 



TOBACCO CURING AND RESWEATING. 35 

tobacco has sweated this way long enough, by trying the bui-n to see if it swells, 
and when it is dry enough, you can tell by the butts and stems. This process 
will cure the tobacco quickly and thoroughly, and it will keep for any length 
of time. If you do not intend to resweat it soon, the butts need not get quite 
so dry, but if you want to resweat it at once for colors, you may then put the 
eases mto the sweat room or apparatus for forty-eight (48) hours at a tem- 
perature of 130 to 140 degrees. The atmosphere being wet either by low 
wet steam or water vapor, the tobacco will thus become soft enough to allow it 
to be taken from the cases and shaken out without breaking any of the leaves. 
At the expiration of the 48 hours shake it out nicely, sort out all the poor or 
"off" hands and pile each case by itself in long shallow piles, seven or eight 
feet long, with the butts all one way, and let the tobacco lay thus with the tips 
and butts exposed another 48 hours. It will then have become cold, and can 
then be cased with the ammonia solution according to its needs, and must then be 
sweated naturally until all rankness has disappeai'ed, and is to be further gov- 
erned by the rules before laid down for casing, boxing, packing, sweating, etc. 
If your goods are a fine, thin texture, you should not, originally, pack them 
so moist as to make them cure dark and matted in the centre of the case. 

If the finest Connecticut tobacco was only packed with less moisture in it, so 
it would not sweat so much during the warm weather, it would then reach the 
manufacturers in such a condition that it could be sweated as dark and safely as 
any other crop, and yield many more wrappers than it now does. 

It is not unusual to find 25 to 50 pounds of tobacco in a case of fine wrap- 
pers wholly unfit for wrapping purposes, just because they were packed too wet. 
As a rule, wrajjping cases do not yield much more than one-half to two-thirds 
what they ought to, and all from the mistaken policy packers pursue in packing 
their goods too wet; so they will sweat hard during the warm months. Of 
course some of the tobacco in a case sweats dark, but only the middle hands, 
and they get so tender they are of no use. Tobacco will not stand such long 
periods of moist sweating without spoiling the leaf. Curing the leaf and sweat- 
ing for dark colors are two independent processes, and cannot both be done at 
the same time and bring out a strong leaf. 

Manufacturers will some day learn to pack their tobacco in such a manner as 
to insure the largest yield of wrappers. It is time enough to resweat tobacco 
four to six weeks before it is wanted for use, and not sweat it six months, and 
even then have to resweat it before it is of desirable colors. Pack it properly, 
and then let the sweating and coloring be one continuous process in the factory 
where it is worked up. There are many manufacturers and buyers of leaf for 
jobbing and retailing that will only buy such stock as is strong in texture, red 



36 TOBACCO CURING AND EESWEATING. 

in color, and of a fleshy body. Such goods are the exception, as they are mere 
accidents. They should be the rule. This class of buyers are getting more 
numerous as they become better educated in the weed, and packers must con- 
form to their wishes. The less it sweats during its first Summer the less it 
looses in weight. So also 'the less it sweats during the Summer, the greater 
the yield of wrappers when the case comes to be resweated, so it is money in 
pocket all around. 

- The packer should not stop to think what color his leaf will be when it is 
cured, only to cure it in such a manner that the manufacturer gets a strong leaf 
that he may manipulate it to suit his trade without injury to the leaf. He should 
pack it in such a state of moisture that when warm weather comes it will go 
into a sensible state of fermentation or sweat, and thus bring up the quality; 
but sweating for colors should only be done just previous to its being manufac- 
tured. Curing must be a drying process, and coloring a wet process, and so 
long as the leaf contains moisture it is constantly undergoing a slow decomposi- 
tion until the leaf dries out enough to stop it, and if the leaf continues moist it 
must rot. 

The sweating, curing and coloring of new tobacco may be commenced very 
soon after it has been stripped from the stalks and piled or packed into cases 
and may be one continuous process providing the tobacco is for factory use and 
to be worked up so soon as it has reached a satisfactory state as to cure and 
color. There is no good reason why we should wait for warm weather 
to give our tobaccos a natural sweat simply because our climate is such that we 
strip and pack it during the cold Winter months. If our climate was always 
warm our tobaccos would go into sweat so soon as they were packed. We can 
produce such a climate in our houses or apparatuses very easily and perfectly by 
artificial means, by having rooms properly constructed and a heat evenly dis- 
tributed, so that we can use either a dry, wet or moist heat, as we may wish, during 
the process. If the tobacco is to be simply cured for the market, so as to get it 
into market early, the process should not be moist enough to leave the tobacco 
in such a state of moisture that it cannot be kept with safety just as long as we 
wish to. 

It should be done under a very low degree of heat, just sufficient to keep up 
a sweat or fermentation, and not dry out the [tobacco too fast or too much, and 
so as to avoid the necessity of repacking the tobacco when it has cured enough, 
for if tobacco be cured by the use of too high a degree of heat or too much 
moisture during the process, it will settle so closely together in the cases that it 
would mat and stick together when it became cooled off, and soon become 
worthless unless it be shook out while it is yet warm, and as soon as the curing 



TOBACCO CURING AND RESWEATING. 37 

is finished, and thus made free before it got cold in the cases or pile. If new 
tobacco is to be sweated, cured and colored by one continuous process, the sweat- 
ing and curing may be done under a low heat and not too much moisture, and 
as soon as the curing is sufficiently done the heat and moisture may be so 
conditioned that the tobacco will get the necessary heat and moisture to color 
it and not dry it out. Either or both processes may be carried on in my ap- 
paratuses, but the curing may be done outside and independent of a special, 
apparatus for coloring the leaf, as the necessary conditions for curing are more 
easily obtained than for coloring. 

My patents of April 19th, August 16th and September 13th, 1881, more 
particularly describe how new tobacco may be treated, and the heats best to 
use, but after reading this book it will hardly be worth while to refer to them. 
The main point is to go so slow with the heat as not to develop any unpleasant 
odors, by first imitating a Summer atmosphere until the tobacco is pretty well 
cured, and then increasing the moisture of the atmosphere so it will not dry out 
the tobacco enough to interfere with its coloring, at the same time using a suffi- 
cient heat to produce the desired colors. If the curing has been carefully con- 
ducted, 110 to 120 degrees will be found sufficient in an atmosphere that is well 
saturated either by using low steam around the cases or by evaporating water in 
the lower part of the sweat house or chamber. Either way produces the same 
result, in the same way and in the same time. It is necessary by either means 
to use thermometers, so we always know at what temperature the interior of the 
sweat house is. If steam from a boiler be used for sweating tobacco, a system 
of perforated pipes in the lower part of the sweat house takes the place of a sur- 
face of water, which only acts to distribute the heat over the surface of the 
lower part of the sweating chamber without altering in the least the nature or 
condition of the atmosphere which surrounds the tobacco-holding vessel. 
By either way of sweating the cases of tobacco are simply surrounded by a satur- 
ated atmosphere. 

Steam cannot exist in a wood sweat-house or apparatus, or any other kind 
of an apparatus, where a temperature below 212 is used. It is simply the vapor 
of water, and it makes no earthly difference to the tobacco or the process 
whether that vapor be generated in the sweating-chamber, or whether it be 
generated in a hot-water stove or steam boiler, and fed into the sweat-house by 
pipes. What is wanted is a moist atmosphere and a certain temperature in the 
sweat-house, which is much below the boiling point of water, and which is in- 
dicated by a thermometer on some part of the house communicating with the 
interior; and if steam from a boiler be used, it is only fed into the lower part of 
the sweating-chamber in sufficient quantity to produce the desired heat, and so 



38 ' TOBACCO CURING AND RESWEATING. 

distributed as to cause the heat to arise uniformly from all the lower part of the 
sweating-chamber. The perforated pipes should not be too far apart, and the 
perforations should be small and numerous, and point to or look towards the 
bottom of the room, and not at once be forced upwards. Heat naturally rises 
to the highest points of a room, and by having the openings of the pipes empty 
downwards it insures a more uniform heat throughout a room or apparatus, as 
the heat is first thrown to the coldest part of the room. 



SUMATRA AND OTHER SHORT LEAFED GOODS OF LIKE 

CHARACTER. 

Such goods require a good tip dip all the way up to the tie in ammonia 
casing to remove the bitter element of the leaf as much as possible. Stand the 
hands on the casing board to nicely drain off, then pack them nicely in a box 
narrow enough to just nicely lap the tips without making too much bellying up 
of the tips. Place the tobacco containing vessels or boxes in a warm room and 
let fermentation take its course until the tobacco has been sufficiently reduced 
of its rank elements, then, if you want darker colors, place the boxes in the 
apparatus, try a temperature of 110 for a few days; then, if not dark enough, 
try 120 for a day or more. The probability is that if you case or wet the leaf 
sufficiently in the ammonia solution, fermentation will do about all you wish 
done unless it be to put it into the apparatus, from one to four days, at a tem- 
perature of 110. 

In speaking of the time goods are to remain in the apparatus I mean a day 
of twenty-four hours. It is not absolutely necessary that you should continue 
the process at a uniform heat, both night and day. When you only run day- 
time or during working hours you will need to take more time than if you run 
the heat regular night and day. Keep up the heat into the night as long as you 
can by making a clean fire about the last thing before closing up for the night, 
and set your stove damper so shut that the fire will hold all night, even if che 
heat is not kept up so high as we wish it in daytime. No harm will be done by 
allowing the heat to go down for a few hours. But hole out that tlie heat does 
not go too high. 

Wisconsin or any tobacco that may be saggy and wet, you first heat in the 
case as before directed for tender or sticky goods, then shake out, dry off, and 
case as the tobacco may require. 



KENTUCKY. 

and all such heavy goods need plenty of ammonia water, an extra amount of 
fermentation, and then if not dark enough, they should be carefully heated. 



TOBACCO CURING AND KESWEATING. 39 

Ammoniacal fermentation, if moist enough and long continued, often removes 
the fire cure from tobacco. 



NATURAL SWEAT KILLED. 



Natural fermentation or sweat is killed or arrested for long periods of time 
by using certain degrees of heat, or any degree of heat from 140 degrees up- 
wards. This will prove nseful to you if you have fine thin goods which needs 
some sweating, and yet do not need a heavy sweating, and where you want to 
hold the goods for sale, and do not wish them to continue sweating 
naturally. I will illustrate what I mean: — Allow that you have two cases of to- 
bacco as near alike as they can be, and you case them as near alike as you know 
how, and pack them up. Now in this condition these two cases would sweat all 
Summer naturally, and before the Winter cold stopped them they would proba- 
bly be spoiled, but you take one of the cases after it had been cased and packed 
a few days and heat it through, say 48 hours at 140 degrees temperature, then 
shake it out and repack it, and place it alongside of the other case, and I can 
almost guarantee it will not go into sweat again no matter how hot the Summer 
may be. You now shake out the case you did not heat up and repack it, and in 
48 hours you will find it hot and sweating as much as before you repacked it. 
This applies to old goods. Should the goods be new, and 140 degrees be likely 
to make them smell bad, use as much heat over 110 degrees as you safely can, 
and not bring out any bad odorj try 110, then advance a few degrees at a time 
until you have gone as far as you can, and keep the goods sweet and natural in 
flavor, and not go over 160 degrees of heat. 

Finally, any time you feel in doubt or undecided as to the best course to 
pursue in order to get the best and most satisfactory results, I would be pleased 
to have you send me a hand of tobacco drawn from the centre of any such case. 
I can then return it to you with such instructions as you may need regarding it. 

Neither dry off nor moisten any sample you intend for me and pack it up in 
such a way that it will not dry out while on its way to me. I will then get it in 
its original condition. Also let me know how old, and what kind of tobacco it 
is, the marked weight and tare, and re weight; chat I may know how much it 
has lost in weight. This will cost you but very little, and may save you con- 
siderable trouble. I am 

Your obedient servant, 

CHAS. S. PHILIPS, 
188 Pearl Street, New York, N. Y. 



40 



TOBACCO CURING AND KESWEATING. 



C. S. PHILIPS' PATENT PORTABLE SWEATING APPARATUS. 

hkat by gas. 

Cut No. 1. 




Cut No. 3. 




TOBACCO CURING AND RESWEATING. 41 

DATE OF PATENTS. 



June 33, 1869. 
June 16, 1874. 
September 36, 1876. 
September 18, 1877. 
March 13, 1878. 
December 9, 1879. 
June 15, 1880. 



November 9, 1880. 
March 39, 1881. 
April 19, 1881. 
April 19, 1881. 
August 16, 1881. 
September 13, 1881. 
January 31, 1883. 



Cut No. 1 represents the apparatus complete, as it looks when in use. It is 4 
feet long, 3 feet wide and is 5 feet high, being just large enough for one original 
case 400 pounds of tobacco, case and all. The roof has sufficient pitch to carry 
the water of Condensation to the back end of the house and into the pan E again 
where it first came from, thus preventing the tobacco from becoming wet by the 
water raining down on to the case from the underside of the roof. 

A, is a water tank which sits on top of the house, or it may be placed on a bench 
on the floor so the faucet B will be over the water pipe D; or the upright part of 
pipe D may be taken off and a hole mode through one side of tank A, and the tank 
slipped over the horizontal part of pipe D, and a lock nut screwed on it on the 
inside of the tank so as to make a direct water connection from the tank A to the 
pan E by pipe D, then the street water may be brought to tank A by iron or lead 
pipe, and on the end of it and resting in the water in tank A you can place a ball 
cock or float valve so you can always keep a certain amount of water in pan E. 
Where you have no street water you can place a barrel of water near the appara- 
tus and pipe from that to tank A, and arrange a float valve the same, 

B is a faucet. 

C is a pipe to carry the water from B to D. 

D is a pipe to carry the water from C to pan E, which is in the bottom of the 
apparatus. 

E is a metal pan in which water is heated and is connected with the water 
tank A by pipe D and C, and must always have enough water in it so it may be 
seen from the outside by looking in the tin funnel at D. 

F is two gas burners underneath pan E. 

G is the door of the apparatus. 

H is the thermometer on the door. 

I are the six fasteners to keep the door in place. 

J is the top part of the sweat house. 

K K is the base, 18 inches high, on which the top] part J rests, and in which 
is the water pan E. See cut No. 3. 



43 TOBACCO CURING AND RESWEATING. 

L L are the handles on the door G, by which it is lifted out or placed in po- 
sition. 

M M are air holes from the burners, and around the end of pan E. 

Cut No. 2 represents the base of the apparatus K K; with the house J 
taken ofE, also the interior construction. E is the pan, D is the water supply 
pipe for the pan. 

N is the floor of the house, which is just over the pan, but in the cut it is 
raised up high enough to show the hopper shaped bottom around the pan E. 
This bottom is made that shape as a matter of economy in the size of the steam 
pan, and also for the purpose of allowing all water of Condensation to run back 
to the pan where it first came from thus nothing is wasted. 

is an iron roller on the floor N, to roll the case in and out on, and may be 
left in under the case. 

Every apparatus is put together and tested before it is shipped. In setting 
them up look at Cut No. 1, which shows the apparatus complete; put the tin 
funnel in the water-pipe shown at letter D. You will find screws for putting 
the apparatus together and screw holes to match. No nails are used in its con- 
struction. Any time the handles do not close the door tightly, turn up the nuts 
until they do. Between the pan and the wood work is a layer of fire-proof mate- 
rial (asbestos). Eacli burner will consume seven and one-half (7>^) feet of gas 
per hour when running under high heats, and each large apparatus should have 
a one fourth {){) inch service cock, and where more than one of these apparatuses 
are in use, there should be }i or ){ inch pipe from the meter to the ^ i'^ch ser- 
vice cock. 

When your gas-fitter sets up the machine be sure and tell him to use a sup- 
ply valve which has a X in'^h opening thnnigh the valve. An ordinary gas cock 
or valve for ^ inch pipe has only ].i inch opening, and that will not give a suf- 
ficient supply of gas. 

The whole apparatus is built of wood, with the exception of the pans, pipes,, 
handles, etc., consequently it cannot radiate any heat. It is tight, so no vapor 
can escape, and you could use it in your office and hardly know it, only you 
could see it. Heat cannot come through wood in sufficient quantity to heat the 
air outside the sweat-house. 

It being portable in every respect, it can be placed anywhere you want to 
do your work, whether it be in a cold cellar or a hot loft. It needs looking 
after only once in 24 hours, and runs night and day alike. The heat will not 
vary after it is once established. To operate the apparaus, you first fill the 
steam tank A, with water, then open the faucet B, the water will run through 
pipe C into D, and into pan" E. When enough water has run in the pan it will show 



TOBAOCO CURING AND RESWEATING. 43^ 

itself in the tin funnel which is in the opening of pipe D, then shut the faucet so it 
only drops into pipe C, or funnel D, about 100 or 125 drops a minute, so as to keep 
the water always at the same level; now take out the door Gr, and head your 
case up squarely in front of the apparatus, and about two feet from it, and so 
that it goes in on the flat, tip the case over and into the apparatus, so 
that the case will rest on the roller, now lift np the other end of the case and at 
the same time push it into the apparatus, then put in the door. Now turn on 
the gas and light the burners. Be sure that the hurners are only lit at the top. 
If they should tahe fire in the ronml holes at the bottom of the burner turn ojf 
the gas and light them over. The top of the hurners should, be about one inch 
from the pan. If the thermometer shows too much heat turn off the gas a 
little. 

It being necessary to examine the tobacco while in the apparatus to find out 
if it is dark enough, you simply take out the door G, draw the case out about 
one foot, raise a board of the case, and draw a hand or two. If not done, close 
the case, push the case back, and put in the door again. Do not interfere with 
the heat unless the goods are done and you wish to stop the process. 

There are three sizes of these sweating apparatuses. 

Number One sweats sixty pounds or less. The tobacco may be sweated in 
the pads or books. For directions see index and article for Sweating in Pads. 

Number Two sweats about one hundred and twenty-five pounds in hands the 
same as when a whole case is sweated at once. For directions see index and ar- 
ticle on instructions for using a No. 2 apparatus. 

Number Three sweats one whole case at once. The directions and instruc- 
tions are the same for one case as for two, ten or fifty cases, and you must read 
the whole book until you master the art. 

A small quantity may be sweated in either machine. 
As a matter of considerable enconomy you should keep the steam pan clean. 
Wash out the inside occasionally, and brush the soot off from the underside. 
Take off the burners and clean them thoroughly with a good stiff brush. Do 
not let them get clogged up by the soot which falls from the pan; if the burners 
smoke and make soot it is because they are burning at the round holes, or you 
have too much gas turned on. The cleaner you keep all these parts the less 
fuel or gas will be required to do your work. Place a piece of sheet iron or 
zinc'on the floor under the burners, have ittwo feet wide and th7'ee feet long. This 
is to catch any soot that may fall from the pan. Be careful to use clean water 
in your water tank so the faucet will not get stopped up. Open the faucet wide 
occasionally for a few seconds, and thus be sure there is no dirt collected in it.. 
This should be done just before leaving it for the night. IN PUTTING A 



44 TOBACCO CURING AND RESWEATING. 

CASE INTO THE PROCESS, SEE THAT IT IS NOT DONE IN A 
ROUGH AND CAKELESS MANNER, ESPECIALLY IN PUSHING IT 
BACK INTO THE APPARATUS AFTER IT IS ONCE ON THE ROLLER, 
AS IT IS ROLLED BACK VERY EASILY j AND IP YOU LET THE 
CASE STRIKE TOO HARD AGAINST THE BACK END YOU MAY IN- 
JURE THE APPARATUS. Any time the apparatus should not be in use be 
sure the steam-pan and water-tank are both full of water and the door of the 
apparatus closed. This will keep all the parts moist and prevent shrinkage. 

In setting up these apparatuses, look first at the cut that you may get a general 
idea as to its construction, and how it should go together. Now take the two 
sides and the back end and stand them on the fioor of your building, and put 
screws in wherever you find screw holes; now lay on the roof and do likewise; 
now take the narrow strip that has the fasteners on and screw that in place in 
front, as that forms the steam joint over the top of the door; now place this 
house in the base of the apparatus; lay in the platform on which the case of 
tobacco is to rest over the steam pan, then put in the door. You will notice that 
the door fasteners bind on the wedge shaped irons on the door, and if they do 
not shut the door tight enough you can turn the bolts in their nuts until they do. 
Each part of the apparatus is marked or stenciled which side goes up, back or 
front; set the apparatus where drafts of cold air cannot interfere with the flame 
of the gas. The warmer you can keep the surroundings the less gas will be 
consumed. WHEN UNBOXING THE APPARATUS SC AS' TO SET IT 
UP, DO NOT REMOVE THE THREE-CORNERED PIECES WHICH 
ARE ON THE BOTTOM OP EACH CORNER OP THE APPARATUS ; 
they serve as supports, so that only the four corners rest on the floor, thus over- 
coming any inequalities of the floor. 



HOW TO USB THE No. 1 APPARATUS. 

SWEATING IN PADS OR BOOKS. 



Case or wet your tobacco the same as I have directed for casing whole cases ; 
pack it away for a few daya, then strip, sort, and pad. Put all the different 
kinds of leaves by themselves in separate pads ; see that they are all quite moist.. 
If any should be too dry you should sponge them over as you book the leaf. 
The lighter the color the more you should moisten the leaf. Have several small, 
tighi wooden boxes made that will fit into the apparatus, about like the one 
which came with the apparatus. Into these boxes you tightly pack your pads of 
tobacco. If you have not enough pads to fill the bix, then make a wood cover 
that just fits inside the box, and lays on top of the tobacco. On the top of this 



TOBACCO CURING AND RESWEATING. 45 

board put a few pounds weight. Now set the box of pads in a warm place for 
a few days — five to ten days. If the tobacco be gummy and raw, or rank, make 
it ten days, then put the box of pads into your apparatus, and follow directions 
as to heat the same as for larger quantities, but not for such long periods of 
time. Keep enough tobacco cased, stripped, and padded ahead, so that each 
box of pads gets the ten days' fermentation. Read the whole book until you are 
master of the art. 



HOW TO USE THE No. 2 APPARATUS. 
Proceed exactly the same as if you were sweating one or more whole cases at 
a time instead of a small case of 125 pounds. Have several boxes made like 
the one that came with the apparatus so that each box gets the necessary nat- 
ural sweat or fermentation ; you will want five or six of the boxes. Case your 
tobacco and stand it up to drain off as before described, then pack it nicely in- 
to your small boxes and set the boxes in a warm room or place 
where the tobacco will get hot in a few days, let them stand 5 to 10 days after 
the tobacco gets hot, then, without repacJcing it, put the boxes of tobacco into 
the apparatus to finish off, using heat as before directed for larger quantities, 
only such a smaller quantity will generally color in less time than one case will. 
Read the whole book until you are master of the art. If you do not master 
it, it will be because you have either not read the book enough, or not under- 
standingly. You cannot fail if you follow instructions. 



46 



TOBACCO CURING AND RESW EATING. 



C. S. PHILIPS' PATENT SWEATING APPAKATUSES FOR ONE 
OR MORE CASES, 

heat by a hot water heater or steamer. Cut No. 1 represents an apparatus for 
sweating two cases at a time. Cut No. 2 represents the pipes which connect the 
heater with the water supply for the stove. 




CUT NO. 1. 




K L 



CUT NO. 2. 



TOBACCO CURING AND RESWEATING. 47 

I manufacture this style of apparatus in four sizes : 

No. 1. Sweats every six days one whole case of seed leaf at a time, in its own 
case, or 400 pounds of tobacco. The apparatus is like cut No. 1, only it holds 
only one case. 

No. 3. Sweats every six days two whole cases at a time. The eases lay side 
and side of each other, as represented by <^ ^ in cut No. 1. The apparatus 
takes up a floor space of four feet wide and six feet long. 

No. 3. Sweats three cases at a time in six days. The cases lay side and side of 
each other, the same as represented in cut No, 1. This apparatus takes up a 
floor space of only four feet wide by eight and a half feet long. 

No, 4, Sweats four cases at a time in six days. The cases lay side and side 
of each other, the same as seen in Cut No, 1, This apparatus requires a floo 
space four feet wide by twelve feet long, 

A one-case apparatus sweats one case per week, 

A two " " " two cases " " 

A three " " " three " " " 

A four " " " four •' " " 

And so on up for any size of apparatus. 

They are all made of one and a half inch pine, and the best the mar- 
ket affords, and will stand several years' constant service. Every part is bolted 
or lag-screwed together, so that, any time it is necessary, any one piece or part 
of the apparatus may be renewed without difficulty. 

Cut No. 1 represents a two-case apparatus complete. A is the base part, 24 
inches high, about 4 feet wide and 6 feet long. This base is entirely independent 
of the house part of the apparatus, and removable from it. Two inches from 
the top of this base A and inside, is a flooring covered with lead to make it 
water and steam-tight, so as to catch and carry off all condensation, 

B is the door which opens upwards on hinges, and is shown partly open, 
partly exposing two cases marked each ^ 

C is a thermometer on the door B, which communicates with the interior of 
the sweating chamber, 

D represents the house part, 

E and P are the two pipes which connect the hot water heater to the appar- 
atus, and a small cold water supply tank in the end of base A, opposite the 
pipes E and P, in which is a float valve for automatically supplying the hot 
water stove and always keeping it full of water. The float valve may be con. 
nected to your hydrant or a tank in your factory. The ends M M screw into 
the holes in the hot water heater. The pipe E is the longer one of the two and 



48 TOBACCO CURING AND RESWEATING. 

goes into the top hole in the side of the stove, and pipe P in the bottom hole 
in the side of the stove. X Z and K L are iron nuts and rubber or gum 
washers, for forming water and steam-tight joints with the sweat house base. 
Gr is a small steamer or hot water heater, the object of which is to vapor- 
ize the water and throw it into the sweating chamber, where it will surround 
the case of tobacco, and the water of condensation is returned back to the 
heater by the tight floor in the base A, but no water is to remain in the bottom 
of the sweating chamber. The better way is to constantly allow condensation 
to go to the sewer or cess-pool or other place of waste, and thus no dirty, con- 
taminated water goes back to the stove. 

H is the stove pipe, which is 4-inch pipe, in which is a damper for regulat- 
ing the heat in the apparatus. 



DIRECTIONS FOR SETTING UP THE 1, 2, 3 AND 4 CASE APPAR- 
ATUSES AND HOT WATER STOVE 

The first thing you do after getting the apparatus into your house is to un- 
box the stove ; then remove all the blocks and strips that were nailed on to the 
woodwork of the apparatus in crating or boxing it for shipment. You will 
find the pipes and dampers, etc., boxed in the underside of base A. 

DO NOT REMOVE THE THREE-CORNERED PIECES WHICH ARE 
ON THE UNDER FOUR CORNERS OF THE BASE A, AS THESE 
PIECES ARE PUT ON TO FORM SHORT LEGS FOR THE FOUR COR- 
NERS TO REST ON TO COMPENSATE FOR ANY UNEVENNESS OF 
THE FLOOR ON WHICH THE APPARATUS IS TO STAND. 

Remove everything from the lead-lined base A except the frame of one-inch 
stuff which is inside on the lead and around the out edges on which is fastened 
the support for the floor on which the cases are to rest. This frame of wood is 
to allow the house part of the apparatus to rest upon it instead of resting directly 
upon the lead, as the lead might thereby be cut through and caused to leak. 
Then place the hot water stove at the right hand end of the base A, as shown in 
Cut No. 1, or opposite to that part of base A which has the water supply tank 
and float-valve in it. You will find two pieces of one-inch pipe corresponding 
with pipes E and F, Cut No. 2 ; the longest one screws into the top hole in the 
side of the stove, the shortest one screws into the lower hole in the side of the 
stove. Screw both these pipes firmly into the stove by their ends M M. On 
each of these pipes, E and F, you will also find two lock-nuts, X Z, also one iron 



TOBACCO CURING AND RESWEATING. 49 

washer, L, and one gum washer, K. Now take off the nuts X X and 
the gum washers K K, leaving on the pipes the nuts Z and iron 
washers L; then move the stove up against or towards the base A, so that the 
pipes E and F will enter the holes and go through into the tank where the float- 
valve is, but do not push the pipes any farther into the tank than is necessary to 
replace the nuts and washer. Now slip over the ends of the pipes the gum 
washer K, and screw on the nuts X X only just far enough, so that the ends of 
the pipes are just flush with the outside face of the nuts. Now, on the outside 
of the base A you set the iron washers L L up against the wood of base A, and. 
then screw up the nuts Z Z tight enough to make water-tight joints. 

Do not use a wrench on the nuts X X after they are once in place in the tank, as 
by turning them up you run great risk of spoiling both the gum-washer and cut- 
ting the lead. You must get tight joints by drawing nuts X and Z together, by 
turning up only on nuts Z which turn on the face of the iron washer. You next 
connect your stove with your chimney, using four-inch pipe, also a damper H 
which I send you, then connect your street water-pipe to the float valve pipe by 
way of the half inch pipe which just projects from the float valve through the 
base A. If you have no water system in your town or in your building, you 
make a stand a few inches higher than base A of the apparatus, and on it place 
a 45 to 60 gallon barrel or tank for holding water, and from near its bottom you 
take out a half inch pipe and connect it to the float valve pipe; now pour water 
in the barrel or supply tank, and let it run into the base of the apparatus until 
the float valve closes itself and shuts off the water, which it should do only when 
the stove has become fllled with water and the small tank in base A has also 
become filled, until the water covers the top pipe from the stove and it is one and a 
half inches under water. But the water should not overflow and cover the whole 
or any part of the lead bottom of the sweat house. Water should only be in the 
small tank, and you must see that the float valve does not close off too soon, as 
the stove must always he full of water. The float valve is tested and adjusted 
before shipping, but during transit it is possiljle for it to get out of adjustment; 
you can easily readjust it by slightly turning the elbow on the pipe or carefully 
bending the arm or lever on which is the ball. Having faithfully attended to all 
the foregoing, and found the stove and base A water-tight, you are now ready to 
place the house part into position. 

You will find the various pieces stenciled as to where they belong. Thus: ROOF 
FRONT, END OUTSIDE, which means that the part so marked is the roof 
and goes to the front of the apparatus ^which is the door), also, it is to go that 
side out. The ENDS, BACK ani FRONT are also so marked. The edges 
that are to go UP are stenciled, THIS SIDE UP, so by looking at the cut you 

f 



60 TOBACCO CUBING AND RESWEATlNG. 

cannot have much trouble in settinjj up any sized apparatus. YOU FIRST 
SET THE BACK PIECE AND TWO END PIECES INTO BASE A AND 
ON TO THE INCH BOARD, THE WIDE EDGES OP THE END PIECES 
TOWARD THE FRONT, and fasten them tog-ether by putting in the lag screws 
wherever you find holes, USING THE LONGEST SCREWS, and screwing them 
up tightly with a wrench; but BEFORE PUTTING IN ANY SCREWS BE 
SURE AND SLIP A WASHER ON THE SCREW, SO THE HEADS 
WILL NOT DRAW SO MUCH INTO THE WOOD. Then lay on the roof 
and do likewise. Now remove the iron fasteners and bolts from the doors or 
front of the house and set the front into position in base A, and then put in again 
into their respective holes in the door fasteners and bolts and turn them up tight. 
Turn the door handles intheir nuts until they close the doors tight enough. Get on 
the roof of the house and put in the lag screws along the front edge down into 
the front piece wherever you find holes; also put in lag screws into the holes 
in the hinges which now have none; now open your door or doors and lay in the 
one and a half inch flooring. It need not be tight together. You are now ready 
to fire up. Start a fire in your stove and run it a few hours before putting in 
any cases, so as to see if all is right. Should the doors leak around the top edges 
or corners slack up the bolts of that part of the hinges that are ON THE DOOR 
and slip under a piece of tin or cardboard and set up the nuts again. See that 
your float valve feeds the water into the tank as fast as it is evaporated by the 
stove. Then you can put in your cases. You will find a piece or pieces of iron 
piping to use for rollers, lay them on the front edge of the floor of your appara- 
tus; head your case up in front of the apparatus on a truck, and tip it over on to 
the roller and push it easily into the apparatus; do not let the case strike hard 
against the back of the apparatus. 

You can leave the roller in under the case while it is sweating, but if you find 
that the underside or down side of your cases sweats too quick or too much, you 
may leave the roller out, the heat then having to come through the thick floor 
will not so quickly or roughly affect the tobacco. You will probably not notice 
much difference unless you should find occasion to use over 140 degrees of heat, 
then you had better leave the roller out during the sweating, or during such 
time as you may be using a high heat. The water in the stove and tank will 
get dirty by use; it should be cleaned out quite often and filled with clean water. 
In regulating the heat in the apparatus you can do so by the dampers in the 
hearth and stove pipe. To run with a low heat, shut the dampers in the stove 
and stove pipe all up tight. If you then cannot run low enough, you can leave 
the stove door open a little. With a little practice and experience, you can run 
at any heat you wish. To increase the heat, you open the damper in the stove 



TOBACCO CURING AND KESWEATIN6. 51 

pipe a little. If the pipe damper be wide open and yet not heat enough, then 
open the hearth damper enough to meet the requirements. In fixing the stove 
so as to carry the heat as far into the night as possible, it is not necessary that a 
high heat be carried all night. If the heat is sufficient to keep the tobacco 
sweating, that is enough. Then carry it higher through the day, that is if you 
should be sweating daytimes with over 120 degrees of heat. If you are not 
using a higher heat it is quite easy to keep that heat night and day. Clean 
your stove out nicely late in the afternoon; put in plenty of clean, hard coal, 
not too large (stove and nut mixed is best) giving it draft a few moments, then 
close all the dampers up tight and leave it until morning. 

THE ONE CASE APPARATUSES HAVE NO FRAME OR BOARDS 
AROUND THE INSIDE OP BASE A, ON THE LEAD. THE BAT- 
TENS ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE HOUSE CAUSE IT TO REST ON 
THE SIDES OF THE BASE A. 

For larger factories I build larger apparatuses, which will sweat at one batch 
six, eight, ten, twelve, twenty-four, forty-eight or more cases. The processes 
and apparatuses are the same, with the exception that in the large apparatuses 
I tier the cases two high. I always advise large dealers or manufacturers to 
build their rooms this same shape, as it allows of sweating any number of cases 
without any person ever working in heated rooms, which has been the means of 
the death of many employers and employees. As almost every large apparatus 
requires some different mechanical arrangements for heating and setting them 
up, I do not in this book attempt to go into the subject, but give special in- 
structions with each apparatus. It is easy to determine how much room any 
apparatus would take up by simply measuring any number of cases tiered two 
high and lying side by side of each other. As any apparatus will turn out a 
batch of goods or the apparatus full of cases about once a week, you can easily 
determine how large an apparatus you need. For instance, a six, eight, ten or 
twelve-case apparatus will sweat six, eight, ten or twelve cases per week, and so 
on up. Do not fail to write me for any information you may wish. 

I am your obedient servant, Chas. S. Philips, 

188 Pearl Street, New York. 



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